The "top-down" approach to minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) phenomenology provides model-dependent indications for a natural stop mass. The approach is based on specific assumptions about the supersymmetry-breaking energy scale and parameters degeneracies. In order to determine robust predictions we update the stop-mass prediction within the MSSM with 25 parameters (MSSM-25) by including electroweak fine-tuning as "naturalness data" during the Bayesian fits of the parameters to experimental data. The approximately prior-independent results show that imposing naturalness, taken here to mean a 25% to 100% fine-tuning, predicts a 1-2 TeV stop mass. The posterior distributions for the neutralino-proton cross sections indicate better prospects for probing the associated neutralino cold dark matter (CDM) with future upgrades of the detection facilities.
Adopting a bottom-up point of view, we make a comparative study of the simplest extensions of the MSSM with extra tree level contributions to the lightest Higgs boson mass. We show to what extent a relatively heavy Higgs boson, up to 200-350 GeV, can be compatible with data and naturalness. The price to pay is that the theory undergoes some change of regime at a relatively low scale. Bounds on these models come from electroweak precision tests and naturalness, which often requires the scale at which the soft terms are generated to be relatively low.
We perform a forecast of the CMSSM for the LHC based in an improved Bayesian analysis taking into account the present theoretical and experimental wisdom about the model. In this way we obtain a map of the preferred regions of the CMSSM parameter space and show that fine-tuning penalization arises from the Bayesian analysis itself when the experimental value of Mz is considered. The results are remarkable stable when using different priors
The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have pushed the limits on masses of supersymmetric particles beyond the $\sim$TeV scale. This compromises naturalness of the simplest supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). In this paper we advocate that perhaps the current experimental data are actually hinting towards the physics beyond MSSM. To illustrate this, we treat MSSM as a low energy limit of a more fundamental yet unspecified theory at a scale $Λ$, and compute the fine-tuning measure $Δ$ for generic boundary conditions on so…
With a bottom-up approach, we consider naturalness in the MSSM and NMSSM. Assuming the light stops, the LHC gluino search implies that the degree of fine tuning in both models is less than 2.5%. Taking the LHC hints for the SM-like Higgs boson mass m_h\sim125 GeV seriously, we find that naturalness will favor the NMSSM. We study the Higgs boson mass for several scenarios in the NMSSM: (1) A large λand the doublet-singlet Higgs boson mixing effect pushing upward or pulling downward m_h. The former case can readily give the di-photon excess of the Higgs boson decay whereas the latter case can no…
We analyse the naturalness of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) in the light of recent LHC results from the ATLAS and CMS experiments. We study non-universal boundary conditions for the scalar and the gaugino sector, with fixed relations between some of the soft breaking parameters, and find a significant reduction of fine-tuning for non-universal gaugino masses. For a Higgs mass of about 125 GeV, as observed recently, we find parameter regions with a fine-tuning of O(10), taking into account experimental and theoretical uncertainties. These regions also survive after comparison…
Recent years have seen increased use of Bayesian model comparison to quantify notions such as naturalness, simplicity, and testability, especially in the area of supersymmetric model building. After demonstrating that Bayesian model comparison can resolve a paradox that has been raised in the literature concerning the naturalness of the proton mass, we apply Bayesian model comparison to GUTs, an area to which it has not been applied before. We find that the GUTs are substantially favored over the non-unifying puzzle model. Of the GUTs we consider, the $B-L$ MSSM GUT is the most favored, but th…
We investigate the question of electroweak naturalness within the deflected mirage mediation (DMM) framework for supersymmetry breaking in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). The class of DMM models considered are nine-parameter theories that fall within the general classification of the 19-parameter phenomenological MSSM (pMSSM). Our results show that these DMM models have regions of parameter space with very low electroweak fine-tuning, at levels comparable to the pMSSM. These parameter regions should be probed extensively in the current LHC run.
In this report, we compare the naturalness and Dark Matter (DM) properties of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and the $B-L$ Supersymmetric Standard Model (BLSSM), with universality in both cases. We do this by adopting standard measures for the quantitative analysis of the Fine-Tuning (FT), at both low (i.e. supersymmetric (SUSY)) and high (i.e. unification) scales. We will see a similar level of FT for both models in these scenarios, with a slightly better FT for the BLSSM at SUSY scales and MSSM at Grand Unification Theory (GUT) scales. When including DM relic constraints, w…
In the Minimal Supersymmetric Extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) the higgsino mass parameter $μ$ appears both in the masses of the Higgs bosons and in the neutralino mass matrix. Electroweak finetuning therefore prefers small values of $|μ|$. On the other hand, bino--like neutralinos make a good dark matter candidate. We show that current direct search limits then impose a strong lower bound on $|μ|$, in particular for $μ> 0$ or if the masses of the heavy Higgs bosons of the MSSM are near their current limit from LHC searches. There is therefore some tension between finetuning and neutrali…
We study the contributions of supersymmetric models with a $U(1)$ horizontal symmetry and only spontaneous CP breaking to various lepton flavor observables, such as $μ\to eγ$ and the electron electric dipole moment. We show that both a horizontal symmetry and a lack of explicit CP violation can alleviate the existing bounds from such observables. The undetermined $\mathcal{O}(1)$ coefficients in such mass matrix models muddle the interpretation of the bounds from various flavor observables. To overcome this, we define a new fine-tuning measure for different observables in such setups. This all…
The start of LHC has motivated an effort to determine the relative probability of the different regions of the MSSM parameter space, taking into account the present, theoretical and experimental, wisdom about the model. Since the present experimental data are not powerful enough to select a small region of the MSSM parameter space, the choice of a judicious prior probability for the parameters becomes most relevant. Previous studies have proposed theoretical priors that incorporate some (conventional) measure of the fine-tuning, to penalize unnatural possibilities. However, we show that such p…
In supersymmetric models a large average stop mass $M_S$ is well known to both boost the lightest Higgs boson mass $m_{h}$ and also make radiative electroweak symmetry breaking unnaturally tuned. The case of `maximal mixing', where the stop trilinear mixing term $A_t$ is set to give $A_t^2/M_S^2 = 6$, allows the stops to be as light as possible for a given $m_h$. Here we make the distinction between minimal $M_S$ and optimal naturalness, showing that the latter occurs for less-than-maximal mixing. Lagrange constrained optimisation reveals that the two coincide closely in the Minimal Supersymme…
Weak scale supersymmetry (SUSY) remains a prime explanation for the radiative stability of the Higgs field. A natural account of the Higgs boson mass, however, strongly favors extensions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). A plausible option is to introduce a new supersymmetric sector coupled to the MSSM Higgs fields, whose associated states resolve the little hierarchy problem between the third generation squark masses and the weak scale. SUSY also accomodates a weakly interacting cold dark matter (DM) candidate in the form of a stable neutralino. In minimal realizations, the…
There exists a vast literature examining the electroweak (EW) fine-tuning problem in supersymmetric scenarios, but little concerned with the dark matter (DM) one, which should be combined with the former. In this paper, we study this problem in an, as much as possible, exhaustive and rigorous way. We have considered the MSSM framework, assuming that the LSP is the lightest neutralino, $χ_1^0$, and exploring the various possibilities for the mass and composition of $χ_1^0$, as well as different mechanisms for annihilation of the DM particles in the early Universe (well-tempered neutralinos, fun…
We discuss the origin of "focus points" in the scalar mass RGEs of the MSSM and their implications for collider searches. We present a new exact analytic solution to the homogeneous system of scalar mass RGEs in the MSSM for general $\tanβ$. This is then used to prove that the focus point for $m^2_{H_u}$ depends only on the value of the top Yukawa coupling at the {\em weak} scale (not its value at the GUT scale) and is independent of the bottom Yukawa coupling.
The absence of any signal of supersymmetry (SUSY) at the LHC has raised the SUSY particle mass scale compared to $Z$ boson mass $M_Z$. We investigate the naturalness of the electroweak symmetry breaking after considering radiative symmetry breaking along with 125 GeV Higgs mass. We find that the important quantity to measure the naturalness of the hierarchy between the SUSY scale and $M_Z$ is the separation between the radiative symmetry breaking scale, i.e., where $m_{H_u}^2+μ^2$ turns negative for large $\tanβ$ case ($μ$ is the Higgsino mass and $m_{H_u}$ is the SUSY breaking up-type Higgs b…
In supersymmetric theories, there is a scalar quartic related to the top and bottom yukawas that gives LHC observable decays of the stop or sbottom. After electroweak symmetry breaking, this quartic induces the decay of the stop (sbottom) to a charged Higgs and the sbottom (stop) without allowing for the corresponding channel involving the W boson. Unlike other scalar quartics, this scalar quartic is measurable at the LHC and for compressed spectra may even be the discovery channel for the stop or sbottom. Observing this decay and measuring the value of the quartic interaction would give direc…
It is pointed out that in supersymmetric models with a new gauge symmetry under which the Higgs is charged, the fine-tuning of the electroweak symmetry breaking is relaxed due to suppression of the top Yukawa coupling at higher scales by a new large gauge coupling. We calculate the fine-tuning in an explicit model and find that the lower bounds on stops and gluino masses from the naturalness criterion are increased by several hundred GeV in comparison to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). The fine-tuning is improved by one to two orders of magnitude as compared to the MSSM, as a…
Non-minimal supersymmetric models that predict a tree-level Higgs mass above the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) bound are well motivated by naturalness considerations. Indirect constraints on the stop sector parameters of such models are significantly relaxed compared to the MSSM; in particular, both stops can have weak-scale masses. We revisit the stop-catalyzed electroweak baryogenesis (EWB) scenario in this context. We find that the LHC measurements of the Higgs boson production and decay rates already rule out the possibility of stop-catalyzed EWB. We also introduce a gauge-i…
A Standard Model-like Higgs near 125 GeV in the MSSM requires multi-TeV stop masses, or a near-maximal contribution to its mass from stop mixing. We investigate the maximal mixing scenario, and in particular its prospects for being realized it in potentially realistic GUT models. We work out constraints on the possible GUT-scale soft terms, which we compare with what can be obtained from some well-known mechanisms of SUSY breaking mediation. Finally, we analyze two promising scenarios in detail, namely gaugino mediation and gravity mediation with non-universal Higgs masses.
We show that, for all values of $Tan β$ and the light right-handed stop mass for which the electroweak phase transition is strong enough to avoid washout following electroweak baryogenesis, the electroweak vacuum is stable over the lifetime of the observed Universe. Cosmological stability of the electroweak vacuum is violated only if the light right-handed stop is lighter than 100-115GeV.
Within a two-loop leading-log approximation, we review the prediction for the lightest Higgs mass (m_h) in the framework of constrained MSSM (CMSSM), derived from the naturalness requirement of minimal fine-tuning (Delta) of the electroweak scale and dark matter consistency. As a result, the Higgs mass is predicted to be just above the LEP2 bound, m_h=115.9\pm 2 GeV, corresponding to a minimal Delta=17.8, value obtained from consistency with electroweak and WMAP (3σ) constraints, but without the LEP2 bound. Due to quantum corrections (largely QCD ones for m_h above LEP2 bound), Delta grows \ap…
In this article we study the MSSM with stops and Higgs scalars much lighter than gluinos and squarks of the first two generations. In this setup, one should use an effective field theory with partial supersymmetry in which the gluino and heavy squarks are integrated out in order to connect SUSY parameters (given at a high scale) to observables in the stop sector. In the construction of this effective theory, valid below the gluino mass scale, we take into account $O(α_3)$ and $O(Y_{t,b}^2)$ effects and calculate the matching as well as the renormalization group evolution. As a result, the runn…
In MSSM models with various boundary conditions for the soft breaking terms (m_{soft}) and for a higgs mass of 126 GeV, there is a (minimal) electroweak fine-tuning Delta\approx 800 to 1000 for the constrained MSSM and Delta\approx 500 for non-universal gaugino masses. These values, often regarded as unacceptably large, may indicate a problem of supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking, rather than of SUSY itself. A minimal modification of these models is to lower the SUSY breaking scale in the hidden sector (\sqrt f) to few TeV, which we show to restore naturalness to more acceptable levels Delta\approx…
We review an analysis of a consistent renormalization of the top and bottom quark/squark sector of the MSSM with complex parameters (cMSSM). Various renormalization schemes are defined, analyzed analytically and tested numerically in the decays Stop_2 -> Sbottom_i H^+/W^+ (i = 1,2). No scheme is found that produces numerically acceptable results over all the cMSSM parameter space, where problems occur mostly already for real parameters. Some numerical examples for Gamma(Stop_2 -> Sbottom_1 H^+) in our preferred scheme, "m_b, A_b DRbar" are shown.
The simplest extension of the supersymmetric standard model - the addition of one singlet superfield - can have a profound impact on the Higgs and its decays. We perform a general operator analysis of this scenario, focusing on the phenomenologically distinct scenarios that can arise, and not restricting the scope to the narrow framework of the NMSSM. We reexamine decays to four b quarks and four tau's, finding that they are still generally viable, but at the edge of LEP limits. We find a broad set of Higgs decay modes, some new, including those with four gluon final states, as well as more ge…
The implications of the LEP Higgs bounds on the MSSM stop masses and mixing are compared in two different regions of the Higgs parameter space. The first region is the Higgs decoupling limit, in which the bound on the mass of the lighter Higgs is $m_h \ge 114.4$ GeV, and the second region is near a non-decoupling limit with $m_h \simeq 93$ GeV, in which the masses of all the physical Higgs bosons are required to be light. Additional constraints from the electroweak $S$- and $T$-parameter and the decays $B \to X_s γ$ and $B_s \to μ^+ μ^-$, which also constrain the Higgs and/or stop sector, are …
We propose using the lightest CP-even Higgs boson in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) to probe the stop sector. Unlike measuring stop masses in production/decay processes which requires knowledge of masses and mixing angles of other superparticles, the strategy depends little on supersymmetric parameters other than those in the stop sector in a large region of parameter space. We show that measurements of the Higgs mass and the production rate in the gluon fusion channel, the dominant channel at the LHC, allow for determination of two parameters in the stop mass-squared matrix,…
We calculate the finite temperature 2-loop effective potential in the MSSM with stop condensation, using a 3-dimensional effective theory. We find that in a part of the parameter space, a two-stage electroweak phase transition appears possible. The first stage would be the formation of a stop condensate, and the second stage is the transition to the standard electroweak minimum. The two-stage transition could significantly relax the baryon erasure bounds, but the parameter space allowing it (m_H \lsim 100 GeV, m_tR \sim 155-160 GeV) is not very large. We estimate the reliability of our results…
We study the naturalness properties of the $B-L$ Supersymmetric Standard Model (BLSSM) and compare them to those of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) at both low (i.e., Large Hadron Collider) energies and high (i.e., unification) scales. By adopting standard measures of naturalness, we assess that, in presence of full unification of the additional gauge couplings and scalar/fermionic masses of the BLSSM, such a scenario reveals a somewhat higher degree of Fine-Tuning (FT) than the MSSM, when the latter is computed at the unification scale and all available theoretical and experi…
We compute the one-loop radiative corrections to the masses of the top quark, the stop squarks and the gluino in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. We include the loops controlled by the strong coupling constant and the top Yukawa coupling, neglecting those controlled by the $SU(2) \times U(1)$ gauge couplings and by other Yukawa couplings. We find that the significant scale-dependence of the renormalization-group-improved tree-level expressions is almost completely removed. Even for natural choices of the renormalization scale, corrections can be numerically relevant. Our results shou…
This work investigates the possibility of a long-lived stop squark in supersymmetric models with the neutralino as the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). We study the implications of meta-stable stops on the sparticle mass spectra and the dark matter density. We find that in order to obtain a sufficiently long stop lifetime so as to be observable as a stable R-hadron at an LHC experiment, we need to fine tune the mass degeneracy between the stop and the LSP considerably. This increases the stop-neutralino coanihilation cross section, leaving the neutralino relic density lower than what is…
We discuss the phenomenology of the lightest stops in models where R-parity is broken by bilinear terms. In this class of models we consider scenarios where the R-parity breaking two-body decay stop_1 -> tau + b competes with the leading three-body decays stop_1 -> W^+ + b + neutralino_1, H^+ + b + neutralino_1, b slepton^+_i neutrino_l, b sneutrino_l l^+ (l=e, mu, tau). We demonstrate that the R-parity violating decay can be the dominant one. In particular we focus on the implications for a future electron posistion Linear Collider.
We study the decays of top squarks and bottom squarks in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with complex parameters A_t, A_b and mu. In a large region of the supersymmetric parameter space the branching ratios of stop_1 and sbottom_1 show a pronounced phase dependence. This could have an important impact on the search for stop_1 and sbottom_1 at a future linear collider and on the determination of the supersymmetric parameters.
The first chapter serves as an introduction to the MSSM. I briefly review the model and explain why stops and sbottoms provide an interesting playground for exploring and testing this model. In the second chapter I discuss stop and sbottom production at lepton colliders. I give the analytical formulae for the production cross sections at e+e- and mu+mu- colliders including (general) beam polarization. A numerical analysis shows the cross sections that can be expected at LEP2, an e+e- Linear Collider, and a Muon Collider. In particular, I address the topics of what can be gained by using polari…
In this work, we study the implication of Higgs precision measurements at future Higgs factories on the MSSM parameter space, focusing on the dominant stop sector contributions. We perform a multi-variable fit to both the signal strength for various Higgs decay channels at Higgs factories and the Higgs mass. The chi-square fit results show sensitivity to mA, tan beta, stop mass parameter mSUSY as well as the stop left-right mixing parameter Xt. We also study the impact of the Higgs mass prediction on the MSSM and compare the sensitivities of different Higgs factories.
We consider the regions of the MSSM parameter space where the top squarks become light and even may be the LSP. This happens when the triple scalar coupling A becomes very big compared to m_0. We show that in this case the requirement that the LSP is neutral imposes noticeable constraint on the parameter space excluding low m_0 and m_{1/2} similar to constraint from the Higgs mass limit. In some cases these constraints overlap. This picture takes place in a wide region of \tanβ. In a narrow band close to the border line the stops are long-lived particles and decay into quarks and neutralino (c…
So far the squarks have not been detected at the LHC indicating that they are heavier than a few hundred GeVs, if they exist. The lighter stop can be considerably lighter than the other squarks. We study the possibility that a supersymmetric partner of the top quark, stop, is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle in the constrained supersymmetric standard model. Various constraints, on top of the mass limits, are taken into an account, and the allowed parameter space for this scenario is determined. Observing stop which is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle at the LHC may be d…
The "golden region'' in the MSSM parameter space is the region where the experimental constraints are satisfied and the amount of fine-tuning is minimized. In this region, the stop trilinear soft term is large, leading to a significant mass splitting between the two stop mass eigenstates. As a result, the decay of the heavier stop into the lighter stop and a Z boson is kinematically allowed throughout the golden region. We propose that the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can search for this decay through an inclusive signature, Z+2jb+missing Et+X. We evaluate the Standard Model …
We have been developing a program package called GRACE/SUSY-loop which automatically calculates the MSSM amplitudes in one-loop order. We present numerical results of calculations for pair-production and three-body decay of the lighter stop ($\widetilde{t}_1$) at the International Linear Collider (ILC) using GRACE/SUSY-loop. Since the distributions of missing transverse energy (MET) depend on mass spectrum of SUSY particles, we consider two scenarios on three-body decay of $\widetilde{t}_1$. In these scenarios, both QCD and EW corrections have positive sign for decay widths and cross sections.
Production of the lightest MSSM Higgs boson h is studied at the LHC. Isorate contours for the h -> gamma gamma and h -> tau+tau- decay channels are shown in the m_A,tan(beta) parameter space. Effects of the SUSY parameters, in particular the stop mixing and stop quark mass, are investigated. Search strategies at the LHC are discussed and the discovery potential is calculated for the CMS experiment. The MSSM parameter space for m_A > 150-200 GeV is expected to be covered with at least one decay channel with an integrated luminosity of 60 fb^{-1}. A light stop quark with large stop mixing can af…
We discuss the fine-tuning issue within the MSSM framework. Following the idea that the fine-tuning can measure effects of some missing mechanism, we impose non-universal gaugino masses at the GUT scalem and explore the low scale implications. We realize that the fine-tuning parametrized with Delta_EW can be as low as zero. We consider the stop mass with a special importance and focus on the mass scales as m_stop <=700 GeV, which are excluded by current experiments when the stop decays into a neutralino along with a top quark or a chargino along with a b quark. We find that the stop mass can b…
We consider the situation in which $m_{3/2}\sim O(100{\rm TeV})$ for solving the gravitino problem and the other supersymmetry(SUSY) breaking parameters are $O(1{\rm TeV})$ for the naturalness. We point out that the anomaly mediation cancels out the renormalization group contribution to the gaugino masses and the sfermion masses other than the stop masses at a scale which is called the mirage scale. The situation is similar to the mirage mediation, in which special boundary conditions for the SUSY breaking parameters are required, though for the stop masses and the up-type Higgs mass, such can…
The Higgs bosons of the MSSM can be produced from the decay of SUSY particles. We review the evalulation of two decay modes in the MSSM with complex parameters (cMSSM). The first type is the decay of the heavy scalar top quark to a lighter scalar quark and a Higgs boson. The second type is the decay of the heavy chargino to a lighter chargino/neutralino and a Higgs boson. The evaluation is based on a full one-loop calculation including hard QED and QCD radiation. We find sizable contributions to many partial decay widths and branching ratios. They are roughly of O(10%) of the tree-level result…
We incorporate the effects of mixing arising from the trilinear terms in the MSSM potential to the effective three dimensional theory for the MSSM at high temperature in the limit of large $m_{A}$. There are relevant one-loop effects that modify the 3D parameters of the effective theory. We calculate the two-loop effective potential of the 3D theory for the Higgs and the right handed stop to analyse the possible phase transitions and to determine the precise region in the $m_{h}$-$m_{\tilde{t}_{2}}$ plane for which the sphaleron constraint for preservation of the baryon asymmetry is satisfied.…
After presenting a simple procedure for testing naturalness (similar to Bayesian inference and not more subjective than it) we show that LEP2 experiments pose a naturalness problem for `conventional' supersymmetric models. About 95% of the parameter space of minimal supergravity MSSM is excluded by LEP2 experiments. Moreover in this model electroweak baryogenesis, or detectable supersymmetric corrections to mixing of K and B mesons, are possible only in very small corners of the parameter space. The naturalness problem is stronger in gauge mediation models, expecially with light messengers. We…
We show that the electroweak fine-tuning parameter Δ_{\rm EW} derived from the well-known electroweak symmetry breaking condition written in terms of weak scale parameters leads to {\it a bound on fine-tuning in the MSSM} and explain its utility for phenomenological analyses. We argue that a small magnitude of the mu parameter, and the concomitant presence of light higgsinos, is the most basic consequence of naturalness in SUSY models, and list the resulting implications of this for experiments at the LHC and at future e^+e^- colliders.
We present the calculation of the stop ($\tilde{t}$) lifetime that results from its decay into gravitinos ($\tildeΨ^μ$) in the final state, namely $\tilde{t}\to \tildeΨ^μ + X$, where $X=t, bW, b lν_l$ for the two-, three- and four-body decay modes. The full calculation is obtained using the Feynman rules for massive gravitino, which is compared with the results obtained employing the equivalence theorem, where the longitudinal component of the gravitino is replaced by the goldstino. The stop turns out to be very long-lived in these scenarios, with lifetimes of $\mathcal{O}$($10^8$s, $10^{14}$s…
We study the processes `gluon gluon -> squark antisquark CP-odd Higgs' within the theoretical framework of the Supergravity (SUGRA) inspired Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) at the leading order (LO) in perturbative Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD). Other than constituting a novel production mechanism of the neutral, CP-odd Higgs particle, they also allow one to relate the size of the corresponding production rates to the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the two Higgs fields tan(beta), to the trilinear couplings A_0 and to the sign of the Higgsino mass term sign(mu). This int…
We investigate the implications of the Higgs rate measurements from Run 1 of the LHC for the mass of the light scalar top partner (stop) in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We focus on light stop masses, and we decouple the second, heavy stop and the gluino to the multi-TeV range in order to obtain a Higgs mass of around 125 GeV. We derive lower mass limits for the light stop within various scenarios, taking into account the effects of a possibly light scalar tau partner (stau) or chargino on the Higgs rates, of additional Higgs decays to undetectable new physics, as well as o…
Light stops can give a strong first order electroweak phase transition in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) satisfying one of the necessary conditions for electroweak baryogenesis. I discuss the region of parameter space where this occurs using a perturbative analysis of the Higgs effective potential. Two-loop QCD corrections associated with stop loops are crucial to open this baryogenesis window, which corresponds to 2.25 < tan beta < 3.6, one stop not much heavier than the top quark, m_A > 120 GeV and a light Higgs boson with m_h < 85 GeV. This region will be explored by LEP I…
The Higgs boson discovery stirred interest in next-to-minimal supersymmetric models, due to the apparent fine-tuning required to accommodate it in minimal theories. To assess their naturalness, we compare fine-tuning in a $\mathbb{Z}_3$ conserving semi-constrained Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) to the constrained MSSM (CMSSM). We contrast popular fine-tuning measures with naturalness priors, which automatically appear in statistical measures of the plausibility that a given model reproduces the weak scale. Our comparison shows that naturalness priors provide valuable ins…
Electroweak baryogenesis (EWBG) in the MSSM can account for the cosmological baryon asymmetry, but only within a restricted region of the parameter space. In particular, MSSM EWBG requires a mostly right-handed stop that is lighter than the top quark and a standard model-like light Higgs boson. In the present work we investigate the effects of the light stop on Higgs boson production and decay. Relative to the standard model Higgs boson, we find a large enhancement of the Higgs production rate through gluon fusion and a suppression of the Higgs branching fraction into photon pairs. These modif…
In order to significantly reduce the fine-tuning associated with the electroweak symmetry breaking in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), we consider not only the minimal gravity mediation effects but also the minimal gauge mediation ones for a common supersymmetry breaking source at a hidden sector. In this "Minimal Mixed Mediation model," the minimal forms for the Kahler potential and the gauge kinetic function are employed at tree level. The MSSM gaugino masses are radiatively generated through the gauge mediation. Since a "focus point" of the soft Higgs mass parameter, m_{h_u…
If the lightest CP-even Higgs boson in the MSSM is discovered at the LHC, two measurements could be made simultaneously: the Higgs mass m_h and the event rate Bs(gg -> h -> gamma gamma). We study to what extent the combination of these two measurements would allow us to extract parameters in the stop mass matrix, including the off-diagonal mixing term, with a focus on the MSSM golden region where the stops are light and the mixing is large. Even though both the production cross-section and the decay amplitude are not sensitive to supersymmetric parameters outside of the stop sector, the branch…
In the contest of supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model, we consider a spectrum in which the lightest Higgs boson has mass between 200 and 300 GeV and the first two generations of squarks have masses above 20 TeV, considering the Higgs boson mass and the Supersymmetric Flavour Problem as related naturalness problems. After the analysis of some models in which the previous spectrum can be naturally realised, we consider the phenomenological consequences for the LHC and for Dark Matter.
Models with a light, additional gauge boson are attractive extensions of the standard model. Often these models are only considered as effective low energy theory without any assumption about an UV completion. This leaves not only the hierarchy problem of the SM unsolved, but introduces a copy of it because of the new fundamental scalars responsible for breaking the new gauge group. A possible solution is to embed these models into a supersymmetric framework. However, this gives rise to an additional source of fine-tuning compared to the MSSM and poses the question how natural such a setup is.…
The recent discovery of the 125.5 GeV Higgs boson at the LHC has fueled interest in the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM) as it may require less fine-tuning than the minimal model to accommodate such a heavy Higgs. To this end we present Bayesian naturalness priors to quantify fine-tuning in the (N)MSSM. These priors arise automatically as Occam razors in Bayesian model comparison and generalize the conventional Barbieri-Giudice measure. In this paper we show that the naturalness priors capture features of both the Barbieri-Giudice fine-tuning measure and a simple ratio mea…
Light states associated with the hierarchy problem affect the Higgs LHC production and decays. We illustrate this within the MSSM and two simple extensions applying the latest bounds from LHC Higgs searches. Large deviations in the Higgs properties are expected in a natural SUSY spectrum. The discovery of a non-Standard-Model Higgs may signal the presence of light stops accessible at the LHC. Conversely, the more the Higgs is Standard-Model-like, the more tuned the theory becomes. Taking the ratio of different Higgs decay channels at the LHC cancels the leading QCD uncertainties and potentiall…
