Supersymmetry and its
breaking
Nathan Seiberg
IAS
The LHC is around the corner
2
What will the LHC find?
• We do not know.
• Perhaps nothing
Is the standard model wrong?
• Only the Higgs particle
Most boring. Unnatural. Is the Universe Anthropic?
• Additional particles without new concepts
Unnatural. Is the Universe Anthropic?
• Natural Universe
– Technicolor (extra dimensions)
– Supersymmetry (SUSY) – new fermionic dimensions
• Something we have not thought of
3
I view supersymmetry as the most
conservative and most conventional
possibility.
In the rest of this talk we will describe
supersymmetry, will motivate this claim,
and will discuss some of the recent
developments in this field.
4
Three presentations of supersymmetry
• Supersymmetry pairs bosons and fermions –
integer spin particles and half integer spin
particles.
• Supersymmetry is an extension of the Poincare
symmetry.
• Supersymmetry is an extension of space and
time. It describes additional dimensions which
are intrinsically quantum mechanical (fermionic).
5
Supersymmetry as an extension of the
Poincare symmetry
• The Poincare symmetry includes four
translations .
• One way to present supersymmetry is through
adding fermionic symmetries which satisfy
Note, these are anti-commutation relations – no
obvious classical analog.
6
The spectrum
• Normally, translations relate a particle at one
point to a particle at a nearby point.
• Because of the larger symmetry there must be
more particles. relates one particle to
another. Every particle has a superpartner.
• The symmetry pairs bosons and fermions –
integer spin particles and half integer spin
particles:
7
Supersymmetry as new quantum
fermionic dimensions (more abstract)
• In addition to the four classical (bosonic) coordinates ,
we introduce four fermionic coordinates with spin 1/2.
• implement translations in .
• Since they are fermionic, . Therefore functions
of superspace, , can be thought of as a finite
number of ordinary functions of space, ,
These ordinary functions represent ordinary particles.
8
Motivations for supersymmetry at the
TeV range
• Dark matter
– Connection to cosmology
• Coupling constant unification
– Relation to shorter distance physics
• Hierarchy problem:
– Dirac’s problem of large numbers
– Enhanced by lack of naturalness
•
•
• 9
Additional motivations for
supersymmetry
• String theory
– Supersymmetry arises naturally in string theory.
It must be present at the Planck scale.
Perhaps also at the TeV scale.
• Supersymmetry is a beautiful idea.
– Many applications to mathematics and other
branches of physics.
Any one of these motivations could be
wrong.
10
Dark matter
Recent astronomical measurements show that only
18% of the matter in the Universe is made out of
ordinary matter – the particles in the Standard
Model. The remaining 82% of the matter is dark.
11
A dark matter candidate: Weakly
Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP)
• They do not interact with electromagnetism and
therefore they appear dark.
• They are massive, interact with gravity, and can be
indirectly detected.
• They are stable and therefore cannot decay and
disappear.
• Assuming they interact with electroweak strength and
were in thermal equilibrium, a simple order of magnitude
estimate leads to their mass m ~ .1 – 1 TeV.
• If this is the origin of the dark matter, it is an indication
for new physics at the TeV/LHC range. It is independent
of supersymmetry. 12
WIMPs in SUSY
• Assuming supersymmetry, every standard model particle
has a (heavier) superpartner. For example, the
electron’s partner is called selectron and the photon’s
partner is called photino.
• The lightest superpartner is typically the photino (or a
linear combination of photino and Higgsino). It satisfies the
requirements to be a WIMP.
• Ironically, the dark part of the mass of the Universe could
be made of the superpartner of the particle of light – the
photon.
13
Coupling constant unification
• The strength of each force depends on distance.
• Use the known measured values of the strengths and
extrapolate them to shorter distances – higher energy:
1/strength Electromagnetic
Extrapolation with the
assumingmodel
standard supersymmetry
particles
[Georgi,
[Dimopoulos Weak
Quinn
and and
Georgi] Strong
Weinberg] Log(energy)
103GeV 1017GeV
• With supersymmetry the strengths of the distinct gauge
interactions become equal around 1016GeV.
• This suggests that they can be unified there to a simple
gauge group – grand unification.
• Such grand unified theories (GUT) explain many other
features of the quarks and the leptons; e.g. their
quantum numbers.
• Discovering supersymmetry will thus lead to a window to
shorter distance physics.
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The hierarchy problem
• Why is the proton so much lighter
than the Planck scale? [Dirac]
• It is unnatural – failure of dimensional
analysis. Is this merely an aesthetic problem?
• The modern version of Dirac’s question: Why
are the W and Z bosons so much lighter than the
Planck scale or the unification scale?
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• This hierarchy is not stable [Wilson, Weinberg,
Susskind, ‘tHooft, …].
– Quantum fluctuations tend to restore dimensional
analysis.
– Like tuning to a critical temperature without a
symmetry
– Equivalently, extreme sensitivity to short distance
parameters
• Technical naturalness: a number is small only
when there is an enhanced symmetry when it
vanishes [‘tHooft].
• is (technically) unnatural.
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The SUSY solution
• Supersymmetry offers a simple solution to this
problem.
• The quantum fluctuations of the bosons and the
fermions partially cancel each other and make
the hierarchy stable. This addresses the
technical naturalness problem.
• More about the aesthetic naturalness below.
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Supersymmetry must be broken
• The superpartners are heavier than their
counterparts. (Hopefully they’ll be found at the
LHC.)
• Therefore, supersymmetry must be broken.
• The details of how supersymmetry is broken and
how SUSY breaking is fed (mediated) to the light
particles determines their spectrum and
interactions. This will be studied at the LHC.
• We will now focus on supersymmetry breaking. 19
Spontaneous supersymmetry breaking
V
The theory is supersymmetric,
but its ground state is not
(as in spontaneous symmetry
breaking in a ferromagnet). field
Using and the fact that the energy is a
component of ,
This vacuum energy is not the cosmological constant, which can be set to
an appropriate value.
Supersymmetry breaking should be
small
• We want the Universe to be approximately
supersymmetric.
• Hope that supersymmetry is dynamically broken (like
BCS) [Witten]:
• This will naturally explain why it is small – will solve both
the technical and the aesthetic naturalness problems.
• For that we need a tiny nonperturbative effect in a gauge
theory.
21
Mediation of supersymmetry breaking
SUSY
SUSY
SM
Gauge or gravitational interactions couple the
supersymmetry breaking sector to the
Supersymmetric Standard Model and mediate SUSY
breaking.
We will now focus on the SUSY breaking sector. 22
The supersymmetry breaking sector
• Supersymmetry breaking is not generic.
• Many constraints on supersymmetry
breaking.
• Most supersymmetric field theories do not
break supersymmetry.
23
Perhaps we live in a long-lived false
vacuum
V We are here.
unbroken
SUSY elsewhere
fields
A very old idea.
Find simpler models of DSB.
(Recall, the c.c. can be set to an appropriate value.)
Metastable supersymmetry breaking
• Cosmological metastability […Linde, Weinberg…]
• Easy to find examples with classical metastable
supersymmetry breaking [Ellis, Llewellyn Smith, Ross (82)].
• All known examples of gauge mediation supersymmetry
breaking restore supersymmetry somewhere in field space
[Dine, Nelson… (94…)].
• Some early examples of metastable DSB […Dimopoulos,
Dvali, Rattazzi, Giudice… (…97…)]
• Metastable DSB is easy to achieve and it is generic
[Intriligator, NS, Shih... (06…)].
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A simple example of metastable DSB
• Consider a supersymmetric gauge theory like QCD with
colors and quark flavors with mass (these
should not be confused with the colors or flavors of ordinary QCD of
the strong interactions).
• For the theory is weakly coupled at short
distance but becomes strongly coupled at long distance
(asymptotic freedom).
• The crossover scale between the short distance and the
long distance descriptions is nonperturbative:
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The long distance theory
For the long distance theory admits
another, dual, description in terms of another gauge theory,
which is weakly coupled [NS]. It can be used to find the
effective potential [Intriligator, NS, Shih].
Order
parameter
Metastable DSB vacuum SUSY vacuum 27
Metastable DSB in SUSY QCD
• A complicated feature is generated in the effective
potential. It is nonperturbative – very quantum
mechanical.
• It involves directions in field space (order parameters),
which do not have a semiclassical meaning.
• The potential is such that the lifetime of the metastable
state is exponentially long.
• The phenomenon of metastable DSB appears generic –
many other examples have been found.
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Particle physics application
• Use this kind of a model as a module which breaks
supersymmetry using some of the known mediation
mechanisms.
SUSY
SUSY
SM
• Some of the known obstacles/difficulties in model
building are viewed in a new light and some of them are
easily solved.
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Inevitability
Consider the limit of decoupling gravity.
Then, the following general considerations:
• Spontaneous SUSY breaking
• Generic theory
• Massive gauginos (superpartners of the
standard model gauge fields)
• No massless bosons
necessarily lead to the conclusion: SUSY breaking
must be due to a metastable state [Intriligator, NS,
Shih].
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Other (gravitational) reasons
for metastability
• The cosmological constant is nonzero (hard to make sense
of de Sitter space).
• Landscape of string vacua [Bousso and Polchinski;
Kachru,Kallosh, Linde and Trivedi (KKLT); Susskind;
Douglas…].
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Cosmology
This SUSY breaking mechanism leads to many new
cosmological questions.
• At high temperatures the lowest free energy state is at the
origin of field space.
• As the Universe cools down, there is a second order
transition to the broken SUSY vacuum [Abel, Chu, Jaeckel,
Khoze; Craig, Fox, Wacker; Fischler, Kaplunovsky,
Krishnan, Mannelli, Torres].
• At lower temperatures the SUSY vacuum becomes the
lowest free energy state. There is a first order transition to
that state, but it takes a long time.
• The cosmological evolution leads to the metastable SUSY
breaking vacuum. 32
• Combine this story with inflation.
• Can the potential be used for the inflaton?
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Conclusions and Outlook
• Supersymmetry is the most conventional
expectation for TeV/LHC physics.
• Accepting metastability leads to surprisingly simple
models of DSB.
• Metastable DSB is generic in SUSY field theory,
and in the landscape of string vacua.
• The cosmology of this setup is interesting and it
poses new questions.
• Find a good model for particle physics
phenomenology – metastablity appears to be
inevitable.
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• Hopefully, there are distinct experimental
signals, e.g. patterns of superpartner
masses, which will be seen at the LHC.
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