SUSY Breaking Sector Research Articles

BOSONIC SEESAW AND A SOLUTION TO THE μ PROBLEM IN THE UNPARTICLE PHYSICS

Recently, conceptually new physics beyond the Standard Model has been proposed by Georgi, where a new physics sector becomes conformal and provides "unparticle" which couples to the Standard Model sector through higher dimensional operators in low energy effective theory. Among several possibilities, we focus on operators involving the unparticle and Higgs boson. Once the Higgs develops the vacuum expectation value (VEV), the conformal symmetry is broken and as a result, the mixing between the unparticle and the Higgs boson emerges. In the former part of this paper, we consider a natural realization of bosonic seesaw in the context of unparticle physics. In this framework, the negative mass squared or the electroweak symmetry breaking vacuum is achieved as a result of mass matrix diagonalization. So, the bosonic seesaw mechanism for the electroweak symmetry breaking can naturally be understood in the framework of unparticle physics. In the latter part of this paper, we consider the unparticle as a hidden sector of supersymmetry breaking, and give some phenomenological consequences of this scenario. The result shows that there is a possibility for the unparticle as a hidden sector in SUSY breaking sector, and can provide a solution to the μ problem in SUSY models.

On uplifted SUSY-breaking vacua and direct mediation in generalized SQCD

We search for viable models of direct gauge mediation, where the SUSY-breaking sector is (generalized) SQCD, which has cosmologically favorable uplifted vacua even when the reheating temperature is well above the messenger scale. This requires a relatively large tadpole term in the scalar potential for the spurion field X and, consequently, we argue that pure (deformed) SQCD is not a viable model. On the other hand, in SQCD with an adjoint, which is natural e.g. in string theory, assuming an appropriate sign in the Kahler potential for X, such metastable vacua are possible.

On the phenomenology of strongly coupled hidden sectors

In models of supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking and mediation, strongly coupled SUSY-breaking sectors can play a significant role in determining the low-energy spectrum of the model. For example, strong dynamics may provide a natural solution to both the SUSY flavor problem and the mu / B mu problem. Recently, it has been suggested that a large class of these models lead to identical boundary conditions at the SUSY breaking scale. These boundary conditions would severely constrain the models' viability. We demonstrate that the boundary conditions are instead sensitive to the details of the hidden sector, so that only specific hidden sectors may be ruled out by phenomenological considerations. We determine the high scale boundary conditions using the operator product expansion of the hidden sector. The techniques used to determine the beta functions are generally applicable to the RG flow of any approximately conformal hidden sector. The discrepancy with previously proposed boundary conditions can be traced to the fact that the renormalization group (RG) flow involves multiple fixed points.

F-theory, GUTs, and the weak scale

In this paper we study a deformation of gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking in a class of local F-theory GUT models where the scale of supersymmetry breaking determines the value of the mu term. Geometrically correlating these two scales constrains the soft SUSY breaking parameters of the MSSM. In this scenario, the hidden SUSY breaking sector involves an anomalous U(1) Peccei-Quinn symmetry which forbids bare mu and B mu terms. This sector typically breaks supersymmetry at the desired range of energy scales through a simple stringy hybrid of a Fayet and Polonyi model. A variant of the Giudice-Masiero mechanism generates the value mu ~ 10^2 - 10^3 GeV when the hidden sector scale of supersymmetry breaking is F^(1/2) ~ 10^(8.5) GeV. Further, the B mu problem is solved due to the mild hierarchy between the GUT scale and Planck scale. These models relate SUSY breaking with the QCD axion, and solve the strong CP problem through an axion with decay constant f_a ~ M_(GUT) * mu / L, where L ~ 10^5 GeV is the characteristic scale of gaugino mass unification in gauge mediated models, and the ratio \mu / L ~ M_(GUT)/M_(pl) ~ 10^(-3). We find f_a ~ 10^12 GeV, which is near the high end of the phenomenologically viable window. Here, the axino is the goldstino mode which is eaten by the gravitino. The gravitino is the LSP with a mass of about 10^1 - 10^2 MeV, and a bino-like neutralino is (typically) the NLSP with mass of about 10^2 - 10^3 GeV. Compatibility with electroweak symmetry breaking also determines the value of tan(beta) ~ 30 +/- 7.

Dark matter and pseudo-flat directions in weakly coupled SUSY breaking sectors

We consider candidates for dark matter in models of gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking, in which the supersymmetry breaking sector is weakly coupled and calculable. Such models typically contain classically flat directions, that receive one-loop masses of a few TeV. These pseudo-flat directions provide a new mechanism to account for the cold dark matter relic abundance. We discuss also the possibility of heavy gravitino dark matter in such models.

A realistic unified gauge coupling from the micro-landscape of orbifold GUTs

We consider 5-dimensional supersymmetric field theories where supersymmetry is broken by the Scherk–Schwarz mechanism (or, equivalently, by the F-term VEV of the radion). In such models, the radion effective potential is calculable in terms of the 5d gauge coupling, the UV cutoff of the 5d field theory, and the field content. We provide simple, explicit formulae for the leading part of the two-loop effective potential. Our analysis applies in particular to 5d orbifold GUTs motivated by heterotic orbifold models. We focus on potentially realistic models of this type and make the additional assumption that the UV cutoff scale is identical with the strong-coupling scale of the 5d gauge theory. Given our stabilization mechanism, the 5d radius is now fixed in terms of the 5d gauge coupling and the field content of the model. This implies a prediction for the effective 4d gauge coupling only in terms of the field content of the model. Given the ‘micro-landscape’ provided by the different possible distributions of Standard Model fields between bulk and branes, we find a subset of models with a realistic unified gauge coupling. We also discuss two possibilities for the ‘uplifting’ of our SUSY-breaking AdS vacua: One is based on the possible presence of a weak warping, the other appeals to F-terms in an extra brane-localized SUSY-breaking sector.

F-term supersymmetry breaking and moduli

We discuss the coupling of heavy moduli fields to light fields when the dynamics of the latter, absent such couplings, yields metastable vacua. We show that the survival of the vacuum structure of the local model depends nontrivially on the cross couplings of the two sectors. In particular we find that for local models (such as those realized by D-branes in type II string theories) with metastable vacua breaking supersymmetry via F-terms, the cross coupling of the two sectors at an intermediate scale can push the metastable vacuum outside of the regime of the effective field theory. We parametrize the region in which the metastable vacua are safe. We then show that sufficiently small cross couplings can be made natural. Finally, we briefly discuss the role of moduli in stringy realizations of retrofitted SUSY-breaking sectors.

On the diversity of gauge mediation: footprints of dynamical SUSY breaking

Recent progress in realising dynamical supersymmetry breaking allows the construction of simple and calculable models of gauge mediation. We discuss the phenomenology of the particularly minimal case in which the mediation is direct, and show that there are generic new and striking predictions. These include new particles with masses comparable to those of the Standard Model superpartners, associated with the pseudo-Goldstone modes of the dynamical SUSY breaking sector. Consequently there is an unavoidable departure from the MSSM. In addition the gaugino masses are typically significantly lighter than the sfermions, and their mass ratios can be different from the pattern dictated by the gauge couplings in standard (i.e. explicit) gauge mediation. We investigate these features in two distinct realisations of the dynamical SUSY breaking sector.

Comments on general gauge mediation

There has been interest in generalizing models of gauge mediation of supersymmetry breaking. As shown by Meade, Seiberg, and Shih (MSS), the soft masses of general gauge mediation can be expressed in terms of the current two-point functions of the susy-breaking sector. We here give a simple extension of their result which provides, for general gauge mediation, the full effective potential for squark pseudo-D-flat directions. The effective potential reduces to the sfermion soft masses near the origin, and the full potential, away from the origin, can be useful for cosmological applications. We also generalize the soft masses and effective potential to allow for general gauge mediation by Higgsed gauge groups. Finally, we discuss general gauge mediation in the limit of small F-terms, and how the results of MSS connect with the analytic continuation in superspace results, based on a spurion analysis.

Flavor in supersymmetry with an extendedRsymmetry

We propose a new solution to the supersymmetric flavor problem without flavor-blind mediation. Our proposal is to enforce a continuous or a suitably large discrete R-symmetry on weak scale supersymmetry, so that Majorana gaugino masses, trilinear A terms, and the μ term are forbidden. We find that replacing the minimal supersymmetric standard model with an R-symmetric supersymmetric model allows order one flavor-violating soft masses, even for squarks of order a few hundred GeV. The minimal R-symmetric supersymmetric model contains Dirac gaugino masses and R-symmetric Higgsino masses with no left-right mixing in the squark or slepton sector. Dirac gaugino masses of order a few TeV with vanishing A terms solve most flavor problems, while the R-symmetric Higgs sector becomes important at large tanβ. ∈ K can be accommodated if CP is preserved in the SUSY breaking sector, or if there is a moderate flavor degeneracy, which can arise naturally. ∈'/∈, as well as neutron and electron electric dipole moments, are easily within experimental bounds. The most striking phenomenological distinction of this model is the order one flavor violation in the squark and slepton sector, while the Dirac gaugino masses tend to be significantly heavier than the corresponding squark and slepton masses.

Higgs boson from the metastable supersymmetric breaking sector

We construct a calculable model of electroweak symmetry breaking in which the Higgs doublet emerges from the metastable SUSY breaking sector as a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson. The Higgs boson mass is further protected by the little Higgs mechanism, and naturally suppressed by a two-loop factor from the SUSY breaking scale of 10 TeV. Gaugino and sfermion masses arise from standard gauge mediation, but the Higgsino obtains a tree-level mass at the SUSY breaking scale. At 1 TeV, aside from new gauge bosons and fermions similar to other little Higgs models and their superpartners, our model predicts additional electroweak triplets and doublets from the SUSY breaking sector.

A simple model of low-scale direct gauge mediation

We construct a calculable model of low-energy direct gauge mediation making use of the metastable supersymmetry breaking vacua recently discovered by Intriligator, Seiberg and Shih. The standard model gauge group is a subgroup of the global symmetries of the SUSY breaking sector and messengers play an essential role in dynamical SUSY breaking: they are composites of a confining gauge theory, and the holomorphic scalar messenger mass appears as a consequence of the confining dynamics. The SUSY breaking scale is around 100 TeV nevertheless the model is calculable. The minimal non-renormalizable coupling of the Higgs to the DSB sector leads in a simple way to a mu-term, while the B-term arises at two-loop order resulting in a moderately large tan beta. A novel feature of this class of models is that some particles from the dynamical SUSY breaking sector may be accessible at the LHC.

LHC signature of mirage mediation

We study LHC phenomenology of mirage mediation scenario in which anomaly and modulus contributions to soft SUSY breaking terms are comparable to each other. A Monte Carlo study of mirage mediation, with model parameters $\alpha=1$,$ M_0=500$ GeV, $n_M=1/2$, $n_H=1$ and $\rm{tan}\beta=10$, is presented. It is shown that masses of supersymmetric particles can be measured in a model independent way, providing information on SUSY breaking sector. In particular, the mass ratio of gluino to the lightest neutralino for the benchmark scenario is determined to be $1.9 \lesssim m_{\tildeg}/m_{\tilde\chi_1^0} \lesssim 3.1$, well reproducing theoretical input value of $m_{\tilde g}/m_{\tilde\chi_1^0} \simeq 2.5$ which is quite distinctive from the predictions $m_{\tilde g}/m_{\tilde\chi_1^0} \gtrsim 6$ of other SUSY scenarios in which gaugino masses are unified at the GUT scale. The model parameters of mirage mediation can be also determined from various kinematic distributions.

Conformal gauge mediation

We propose a one-parameter theory for gauge mediation of supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking. The spectrum of SUSY particles such as squarks and sleptons in the SUSY standard-model and the dynamics of SUSY-breaking sector are, in principle, determined only by one parameter in the theory, that is, the mass of messengers. Above the messenger threshold all gauge coupling and Yukawa coupling constants in the SUSY-breaking sector are on the infrared fixed point. We find that the present theory may predict a split spectrum of the standard-model SUSY particles, mgaugino<msfermion, where mgaugino and msfermion are SUSY-breaking masses for gauginos and squarks/sleptons, respectively.

Prospects for mirage mediation

Mirage mediation reduces the fine-tuning in the minimal supersymmetric standard model by dynamically arranging a cancellation between anomaly-mediated and modulus-mediated supersymmetry breaking. We explore the conditions under which a mirage "messenger scale" is generated near the weak scale and the little hierarchy problem is solved. We do this by explicitly including the dynamics of the SUSY-breaking sector needed to cancel the cosmological constant. The most plausible scenario for generating a low mirage scale does not readily admit an extra-dimensional interpretation. We also review the possibilities for solving the mu/Bmu problem in such theories, a potential hidden source of fine-tuning.

Solving the supersymmetricCPproblem with flavor breakingFterms

Supersymmetric flavor models for the radiative generation of fermion masses offer an alternative way to solve the SUSY-$CP$ problem. We assume that the supersymmetric theory is flavor and $CP$ conserving. $CP$ violating phases are associated to the vacuum expectation values of flavor violating SUSY-breaking fields. As a consequence, phases appear at tree level only in the soft supersymmetry-breaking matrices. Using a U(2) flavor model as an example we show that it is possible to generate radiatively the first and second generation of quark masses and mixings as well as the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) $CP$ phase. The one-loop supersymmetric contributions to electric dipole moments are automatically zero since all the relevant parameters in the Lagrangian are flavor conserving and as a consequence real. The size of the flavor and $CP$ mixing in the SUSY-breaking sector is mostly determined by the fermion mass ratios and CKM elements. We calculate the contributions to $ϵ$, ${ϵ}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ and to the $CP$ asymmetries in the $B$ decays to $\ensuremath{\psi}{K}_{s}$, $\ensuremath{\phi}{K}_{s}$, ${\ensuremath{\eta}}^{\ensuremath{'}}{K}_{s}$ and ${X}_{s}\ensuremath{\gamma}$. We analyze a case study with maximal predictivity in the fermion sector. For this worst case scenario the measurements of $\ensuremath{\Delta}{m}_{K}$, $\ensuremath{\Delta}{m}_{B}$ and $ϵ$ constrain the model requiring extremely heavy squark spectra.

Sparticle spectrum and phenomenology in split supersymmetry: Some possibilities

We investigate the split supersymmetry (SUSY) scenario recently proposed by Arkani-Hamed and Dimopoulos, where the scalars are heavy but the fermions are within the TeV range. We show that the sparticle spectrum in such a case crucially depends on the specific details of the mechanism underlying the SUSY breaking scheme, and the accelerator signals are also affected by it. In particular, we demonstrate in the context of a braneworld-inspired model, used as illustration in the original work, that a new fermion ${\ensuremath{\psi}}_{X}$, arising from the SUSY breaking sector, is shown to control low-energy phenomenology in several cases. Also, SUSY signals are characterized by the associated production of the light neutral Higgs. In an alternative scenario where the gauginos are assumed to propagate in the bulk, we find that gluinos can be heavy and short-lived, and the SUSY breaking scale can be free of cosmological constraints.

Constraining Z′ from supersymmetry breaking

We suggest and analyze a class of supersymmetric Z′ models based on the gauge symmetry U(1) x = xY−( B− L), where Y is the Standard Model hypercharge. For 1< x<2, the U(1) x D-term generates positive contributions to the slepton masses, which is shown to solve the tachyonic slepton problem of anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking (AMSB). The resulting models are very predictive, both in the SUSY breaking sector and in the Z′ sector. We find M Z′ =2–4 TeV and the Z– Z′ mixing angle ξ⋍0.001. Consistency with symmetry breaking and AMSB phenomenology renders the Z′ “leptophobic”, with Br(Z′→ℓ +ℓ −)⋍(1–1.6)% and Br(Z′→q q ̄ )⋍44% . The lightest SUSY particle is either the neutral Wino or the sneutrino in these models.

Phenomenology of Low-Scale Supersymmetry Breaking Models

In this review we consider the distinctive phenomenology of supersymmetric models in which the scale of SUSY breaking is very low, [Formula: see text], focusing on the Higgs sector and the process of electroweak breaking. Using an effective Lagrangian description of the interactions between the observable fields and the SUSY breaking sector, it is shown how the conventional MSSM picture can be substantially modified. For instance, the Higgs potential has non-negligible SUSY breaking quartic couplings that can modify completely the pattern of electroweak breaking and the Higgs spectrum with respect to that of the conventional MSSM-like models.

4D constructions of supersymmetric extra dimensions and gaugino mediation

We present 4D gauge theories which at low energies coincide with higher dimensional supersymmetric (SUSY) gauge theories on a transverse lattice. We show that in the simplest case of pure 5D SUSY Yang-Mills there is an enhancement of SUSY in the continuum limit without fine-tuning. This result no longer holds in the presence of matter fields, in which case fine-tuning is necessary to ensure higher dimensional Lorentz invariance and supersymmetry. We use this construction to generate 4D models which mimic gaugino mediation of SUSY breaking. The way supersymmetry breaking is mediated in these models to the MSSM is by assuming that the physical gauginos are a mixture of a number of gauge eigenstate gauginos: one of these couples to the SUSY breaking sector, while another couples to the MSSM matter fields. The lattice can be as coarse as just two gauge groups while still obtaining the characteristic gaugino-mediated soft breaking terms.