Mixing between gravitational and weak interactions through the massive gravitino

The interactions of the Goldstone neutrino, in a globally supersymmetric theory, are shown to depend only on the mass spectrum. If supersymmetry is realized locally, the Goldstone neutrino is eliminated by the super-Higgs mechanism; the gravitino (spin $\text{3}\text{2}$ partner of the gravition) becomes massive, leading to a mixing between gravitational and weak interactions. Weak interactions of the gravitino, for example weak decays of heavy new particles, can be recovered as a special case of gravitational ones.     

Associated production of light gravitinos in e+e? and e?γ collisions

Light gravitino productions in association with a neutralino (selectron) in e ⁺ e ⁻ (e ⁻ γ) collisions are restudied in a scenario that the lightest supersymmetric particle is a gravitino and the produced neutralino (selectron) promptly decays into a photon (electron) and a gravitino. We explicitly give the helicity amplitudes for the production processes by using the effective goldstino interaction Lagrangian, and present the cross sections with different collision energies and mass spectra. We also examine selection efficiencies by kinematical cuts and beam polarizations for the signal and background processes, and show that the energy and angular distributions of the photon (electron) can explore the mass of the t-channel exchange particle as well as the mass of the decaying particle at a future e ⁺ e ⁻ (e ⁻ γ) collider.     

Studying very light gravitino at the ILC

A collider signal with a stable gravitino of O(10) eV mass at the International Linear Collider (ILC) experiment is investigated. Such a light gravitino is generally predicted in the low-scale gauge mediation scenario of the supersymmetry breaking. We particularly focus on the case that the next lightest supersymmetric particle is stau, which eventually decays into a gravitino and a τ-lepton. With such a small gravitino mass, the lifetime of the stau is ¹⁰−15-¹⁰−11 s, and the produced stau decays before reaching the first layer of the inner detector of the ILC. It is shown, however, that the lifetime can be determined from the distribution of the impact parameter, which is obtained by observing charged tracks caused by decay products of the τ-lepton. This measurement also enables us to estimate the mass of the gravitino and determine the scale of the supersymmetry breaking. Based on a simulation study, we found that the lifetime can be measured when it is longer than ∼¹⁰−14 s and the stau mass is about 100 GeV.     

Weak interactions of a light gravitino: A lower limit on the gravitino mass from the decay ψ→gravitino + antiphotino

The massive gravitino of spontaneously-broken locally supersymmetric theories may well be very light, leading to a mixing between weak and gravitational interactions. Particularly interesting is the photon coupling to a gravitino-antiphotino pair, with a vertex factor ($\text{κ/m}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>3</mtext><mtext>2</mtext><mtext>\surd 6</mtext>}}\text{) γ}{}^{\mathrm{\mu }}\text{q}{}^2$: a one-photon exchange with ordinary fermions is equivalent to a local four-fermion interaction. From the upper limit on the decay ψ → gravitino + antiphotino we get a lower limit ～ 10^?8 eV/c² on the gravitino mass.     

Nucleosynthesis bounds in gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking theories

In gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking theories the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle can decay during or after the nucleosynthesis epoch. The decay products such as photons and hadrons can destroy the light element abundances. Restricting the damage that these decays can do leads to constraints on the abundance and lifetime of the NLSP. We compute the freezeout abundance of the NLSP by including all coannihilation thresholds which are particularly important in the case in which the NLSP is the lightest stau. We find that the upper bound on the messenger scale can be as stringent as 10¹² GeV when the NLSP is the lightest neutralino and 10¹³ GeV when the NLSP is the lightest stau. Our findings disfavour models of gauge mediation where the messenger scale is close to the GUT scale or results from balancing renormalisable interactions with non-renormalisable operators at the Planck scale. When combined with the requirement of no gravitino overabundance, our bound implies that the reheating temperature after inflation must be less than 10⁷ GeV.     

A la recherche d'un nouveau boson de spin un

The spin-1 partner of the goldstino (gravitino) under supersymmetry may be very light and very weakly coupled. We study how it could appear in e⁺e^? annihilations, K and ω decays and beam dump experiments. If its mass is very small it would be produced and interact like a pseudoscalar particle somewhat similar to an axion, but with different decay modes.     

Detecting metastable staus and gravitinos at the ILC

A study of various SUSY scenarios is presented in which the lightest supersymmetric particle is the gravitino and the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle is a scalar tau with lifetimes ranging from seconds to years. Gravitinos are interesting dark matter candidates which can be produced in decays of heavier sparticles at the International Linear Collider (ILC), but remain undetected in direct searches of astrophysical experiments. We investigate the detection and measurement of metastable staus, which may be copiously produced at the ILC either directly or via cascade decays. A proper choice of the experimental conditions will allow one to collect large samples of s coming to rest in the calorimeters of the ILC detector and to study the subsequent decays . Detailed simulations show that the properties of the stau and the gravitino, such as mass and lifetime and mass, can be accurately determined at a future ILC and may provide direct access to the gravitational coupling, respectively Planck scale.     

Light singlet particles and their cosmological consequences in witten-type supersymmetric models

In a class of supersymmetric gauge models which generate a large mass scale from a supersymmetry breaking mass scale M through loop corrections, there exists generally a very light scalar particle which transforms like a singlet under SU(3)_c × SU(2)_L with no U(1) charge. Cosmological constraints on such a particle are so severe that an upper bound is set on possible values of supersymmetry breaking scale in this class of models as M ? 500 TeV provided that the large mass scale is 10¹⁵ GeV and the mass of the light scalar particle is generated in one-loop order. This bound holds even if the goldstino is not absorbed into the gravitino.     

Heavy SUSY Higgs bosons at e + e − linear colliders

The production mechanisms and decay modes of the heavy neutral and charged Higgs bosons in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model are investigated at future e ⁺ e ^? colliders in the TeV energy regime. We generate supersymmetric particle spectra by requiring the MSSM Higgs potential to produce correct radiative electroweak symmetry breaking, and we assume a common scalar mass m₀, gaugino mass m_1/2 and trilinear coupling A, as well as gauge and Yukawa coupling unification at the Grand Unification scale. Particular emphasis is put on the low tan β solution in this scenario where decays of the Higgs bosons to Standard Model particles compete with decays to supersymmetric charginos/neutralinos as well as sfermions. In the high tan β case, the supersymmetric spectrum is either too heavy or the supersymmetric decay modes are suppressed, since the Higgs bosons decay almost exclusively into b and τ pairs. The main production mechanisms for the heavy Higgs particles are the associated AH production and H ⁺H^? pair production with cross sections of the order of a few fb.     

Single and multi-photon events with missing energy in eecollisions at = 189 GeV

Single and multi-photon events with missing energy are analysed using data collected with the L3 detector at LEP at a centre-of-mass energy of 189 GeV, for a total of 176 pb of integrated luminosity. The cross section of the process e⁺e⁻ → γ(γ) is measured and the number of light neutrino flavours is determined to be N_ν=3.011±0.077 including lower energy data. Upper limits on cross sections of supersymmetric processes are set and interpretations in supersymmetric models provide improved limits on the masses of the lightest neutralino and the gravitino. Graviton-photon production in low scale gravity models with extra dimensions is searched for and limits on the energy scale of the model are set exceeding 1 TeV for two extra dimensions.     

Constraints on light particles from stellar evolution

We examine the constraints imposed on the numbers and interactions of light particles by our understanding of the late stages of stellar evolution, including red giants, carbon-burning stars and cooling neutron stars. We show that these astrophysical considerations restrict the number of neutrino types to be less than 10^+2±1. This result complements the standard constraints from cosmological nucleosynthesis, which was unable to exclude numbers of neutrinos between a few thousand and the best particle physics limit of order 10⁵. We also investigate the constraints on supersymmetric theories with a light photino and gravitino, finding that the supersymmetry breaking scale parameter f>O(100GeV) and the selectron masses are >20 to 40 GeV. Finally, we study energy-loss rates by majoron and invisible axion emission.     

Supersymmetric relics from the big bang

We consider the cosmological constraints on supersymmetric theories with a new, stable particle. Circumstantial evidence points to a neutral gauge/Higgs fermion as the best candidate for this particle, and we derive bounds on the parameters in the lagrangian which govern its mass and couplings. One favored possibility is that the lightest neutral supersymmetric particle is predominantly a photino $\text{～}\text{γ}$ with mass above $\text{1}\text{2}$ GeV, while another is that the lightest neutral supersymmetric particle is a Higgs fermion with mass above 5 GeV or less than O(100) eV. We also point out that a gravitino mass of 10 to 100 GeV implies that the temperature after completion of an inflationary phase cannot be above 10¹⁴ GeV, and probably not above 3 × 10¹² GeV. This imposes constraints on mechanisms for generating the baryon number of the universe.     

Search for R-parity violating decays of sfermions at LEP

A search for pair-produced sfermions, the scalar supersymmetric partners of the Standard Model fermions, under the assumption that R-parity is not conserved has been performed using data collected with the OPAL detector at LEP. The data samples analysed correspond to an integrated luminosity of about 610 pb^-1 collected at centre-of-mass energies of GeV. An important consequence of R-parity violation is that the lightest supersymmetric particle is expected to be unstable. Searches for R-parity violating decays of charged sleptons, sneutrinos and squarks have been performed under the assumptions that the lightest supersymmetric particle decays promptly and that only one of the R-parity violating couplings is dominant for each of the decay modes considered. Such processes would yield final states consisting of leptons, jets, or both, with or without missing energy. No significant signal-like excess of events has been observed with respect to the Standard Model expectations. Limits on the production cross-sections of sfermions in R-parity violating scenarios are obtained. Constraints on the supersymmetric particle masses are also presented in an R-parity violating framework analogous to the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.Received: 25 June 2003, Published online: 13 February 2004     

Search for R-parity violating decays of scalar fermions at LEP

A search for pair produced scalar fermions with couplings that violate R-parity has been performed using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 56 pb at a centre-of-mass energy of 183 GeV collected with the OPAL detector at LEP. An important consequence of R-parity breaking interactions is that the lightest supersymmetric particle is expected to be unstable. Searches for R-parity violating decays of charged sleptons, sneutrinos and stop quarks have been performed under the assumptions that the lightest supersymmetric particle decays promptly and that only one of the R-parity violating couplings is dominant for each of the decay modes considered. Such processes would yield multi-leptons, jets plus leptons or multi-jets, with or without missing energy, in the final state. No significant excess of such events has been observed. Limits on the production cross-sections of scalar fermions in R-parity violating scenarios are obtained. Mass exclusion regions are also presented in the framework of the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Received: 16 March 1999 / Published online: 14 October 1999     

Electroweak precision data and gravitino dark matter

Electroweak precision measurements can provide indirect information about the possible scale of supersymmetry already at the present level of accuracy. We review present day sensitivities of precision data in mSUGRA-type models with the gravitino as the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). The χ ² fit is based on M _W , sin² θ _eff, (g−2) _μ , BR(b → sγ) and the lightest MSSM Higgs boson mass, M _h . We find indications for relatively light soft supersymmetry-breaking masses, offering good prospects for the LHC and the ILC, and in some cases also for the Tevatron.      

Supergravity,R invariance and spontaneous supersymmetry breaking

We show that in order for a U(1) gauge theory with a Fayet-Illiopoulos term to be consistently coupled to supergravity, preserving gauge invariance, the superpotential must be R invariant. A supersymmetric cosmological term and therefore an explicit mass-like term for the gravitino is forbidden by gauge invariance. This result severely constrains the possible models for non-gravitational interactions. We comment on possible mass term the gauginos induced by gravitational effects.     

Supersymmetric benchmarks with non-universal scalar masses or gravitino dark matter

We motivate, propose and examine a new set of benchmark supersymmetric scenarios, some of which have non-universal Higgs scalar masses (NUHM) and others have gravitino dark matter (GDM). The scalar masses in these proposed models are either considerably larger or smaller than the narrow range allowed for the same gaugino mass m_1/2 in the constrained MSSM (CMSSM) with universal scalar masses m₀ and neutralino dark matter. Unlike the CMSSM, the proposed NUHM and GDM models with larger m₀ may have large branching ratios for Higgs and/or Z production in the cascade decays of heavier sparticles, whose detection we discuss. The novel phenomenology of the GDM models depends on the nature of the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP), which has a lifetime exceeding 10⁴ s in the proposed benchmark scenarios. In one GDM scenario the NLSP is the lightest neutralino χ, and the supersymmetric collider signatures are similar to those in previous CMSSM benchmarks, but with a distinctive spectrum that would be challenging for the LHC and ILC. In the other GDM scenarios based on minimal supergravity (mSUGRA), the NLSP is the lighter stau slepton , with a lifetime between ∼10⁴ and 3×10⁶ s. Every supersymmetric cascade would end in a , which would have a distinctive time-of-flight signature. Slow-moving ’s might be trapped in a collider detector or outside it, and the preferred detection strategy would depend on the lifetime. We discuss the extent to which these mSUGRA GDM scenarios could be distinguished from gauge-mediated models.     

The neutralinos of theSU(N,1) minimal supergravity model and standard cosmology

We discuss the effect of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), a Higgsino, and of the gravitino of theSU(N,1) minimal SUGRA model in the standard big bang theory. The freeze out of the LSP depends on the gravitino mass and on the top mass and leads to restrictive lower bounds for these parameters in the model. The decay of a gravitino with mass in the few TeV range leads to a delay in the cooling of the universe before nucleosynthesis. This constitutes the main bound on the gravitino mass of the model. The results are compared with the more standard “simultaneous decay approximation”.     

Generation-changing interaction of sneutrinos in <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript> + </Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>-</Superscript> collisions

The measurability of generation mixing is studied on pair production of sneutrinos in e ⁺ e ^- collisions and their subsequent decays into two different charged leptons e and μ with two lighter charginos. The analyses are made systematically in a general framework of the supersymmetric extension of the standard model. The production and decay process depends on the parameters of the chargino sector as well as those of the sneutrino sector. Although generation-changing interactions are severely constrained by radiative charged-lepton decays, sizable regions in the parameter space could still be explored at e ⁺ e ^- colliders in the near future. Received: 6 October 2004, Revised: 14 November 2004, Published online: 14 January 2005 PACS: 11.30.Hv, 12.15.Ff, 12.60.Jv, 14.80.Ly     

SuperWIMP dark matter scenario in light of WMAP

The heavy gravitino in the minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) models is likely to be the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). Produced from the late decays of the metastable weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) such as the lightest neutralinos, the stable gravitinos can be plausible candidates for the cold dark matter in the universe. Such gravitino dark matter can naturally evade the current detection experiments due to its superweak couplings. However, this scenario must be subjected to the constraints from the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) predictions for light element abundances as well as the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe (WMAP) data for the relic density. Assuming the popular case in which the lightest neutralino is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP), we find that requiring BBN predictions for light element abundances to agree with the WMAP data can impose upper and lower mass bounds on both the gravitino LSP and the neutralino NLSP. A scan over the mSUGRA parameter space, subjected to the BBN constraints, the WMAP data and the bounds, shows that the low ( ) region as well as the region accessible at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be severely constrained. Such stringent constraints on the parameter space might be instructive for testing this scenario in future collider experiments.Received: 17 August 2004, Revised: 9 September 2004, Published online: 3 November 2004