Supergravity models with 50–100 TeV scalars, supersymmetry discovery at the LHC, and gravitino decay constraints

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of testing supergravity unified models with scalar masses in the range 50-100 TeV and much lighter gaugino masses at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is carried out under the constraints that models produce the Higgs boson mass consistent with experiment and also produce dark matter consistent with WMAP and PLANCK experiments. A set of benchmarks in the supergravity parameter space are investigated using a combination of signal regions which are optimized for the model set. It is found that some of the models with scalar masses in the 50-100 TeV mass range are discoverable with as little as 100 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity and should be accessible at the LHC RUN II. The remaining benchmark models are found to be discoverable with less than 1000 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity and thus testable in the high luminosity era of the LHC, i.e., at HL-LHC. It is shown that scalar masses in the 50-100 TeV range but gaugino masses much lower in mass produce unification of gauge coupling constants, consistent with experimental data at low scale, with as good an accuracy (and sometimes even better) as models with low ($\mathcal{O}(1)$ TeV) weak scale supersymmetry. Decay of the gravitinos for the supergravity model benchmarks are investigated and it is shown that they decay before the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). Further, we investigate the non-thermal production of neutralinos from gravitino decay and it is found that the non-thermal contribution to the dark matter relic density is negligible relative to that from the thermal production of neutralinos for reheat temperature after inflation up to $10^9$ GeV. An analysis of the direct detection of dark matter for SUGRA models with high scalar masses is also discussed.