No Arabic abstract
In this work we study the collider phenomenology of color-octet scalars (sgluons) in minimal supersymmetric models endowed with a global continuous $R$ symmetry. We systematically catalog the significant decay channels of scalar and pseudoscalar sgluons and identify novel features that are natural in these models. These include decays in nonstandard diboson channels, such as to a gluon and a photon; three-body decays with considerable branching fractions; and long-lived particles with displaced vertex signatures. We also discuss the single and pair production of these particles and show that they can evade existing constraints from the Large Hadron Collider, to varying extents, in large regions of reasonable parameter space. We find, for instance, that a 725 GeV scalar and a 350 GeV or lighter pseudoscalar can still be accommodated in realistic scenarios.
We examine the phenomenology of the scalar fields in weak and Higgs sectors of minimal $R$-symmetric models, in particular the swino and sbino, the scalar partners to the chiral fields that marry the electroweak gauge bosons in Dirac gaugino models. These fields are in adjoint representations of $SU(2)$ and $U(1)$ and have both $CP$-even and $CP$-odd components. The interactions of these new states are summarized, and decay widths are computed analytically to one loop order. We discuss the tree level contributions of these new states to the mass spectrum of MSSM sfermions. We also explore production cross sections and decay signatures at colliders for several chosen benchmarks. We find that large regions of parameter space are unconstrained by present collider data.
In this work we study the collider phenomenology of color-octet scalars (sgluons) in supersymmetric models with Dirac gaugino masses that feature an explicitly broken $R$ symmetry ($R$-broken models). We construct such models by augmenting minimal $R$-symmetric models with a fairly general set of supersymmetric and softly supersymmetry-breaking operators that explicitly break $R$ symmetry. We then compute the rates of all significant two-body decays and highlight new features that appear as a result of $R$ symmetry breaking, including enhancements to extant decay rates, novel tree- and loop-level decays, and improved cross sections of single sgluon production. We demonstrate in some detail how the familiar results from minimal $R$-symmetric models can be obtained by restoring $R$ symmetry. In parallel to this discussion, we explore constraints on these models from the Large Hadron Collider. We find that, in general, $R$ symmetry breaking quantitatively affects existing limits on color-octet scalars, perhaps closing loopholes for light CP-odd (pseudoscalar) sgluons while opening one for a light CP-even (scalar) particle. Qualitatively, however, we find that -- much as for minimal $R$-symmetric models, despite stark differences in phenomenology -- scenarios with broken $R$ symmetry and two sgluons below the TeV scale can be accommodated by existing searches.
New physics at the weak scale that can couple to quarks typically gives rise to unacceptably large flavor changing neutral currents. An attractive way to avoid this problem is to impose the principal of minimal flavor violation (MFV). Recently it was noted that in MFV only scalars with the same gauge quantum numbers as the standard model Higgs doublet or color octet scalars with the same weak quantum numbers as the Higgs doublet can couple to quarks. In this paper we compute the one-loop rate for production of a single color octet scalar through gluon fusion at the LHC, which can become greater than the tree level pair production rate for octet scalar masses around a TeV. We also calculate the precision electroweak constraint from Z decays to a b and anti-b quark; this constraint on color octet mass and Yukawa coupling affects the allowed range for single octet scalar production through gluon fusion.
In an extension of the Standard Model with a scalar color octet, the possibility of the strongly first-order electroweak phase transition is studied, by examining the finite-temperature effective Higgs potential at the one-loop level. It is found that there are wide regions in the parameter space that allow the strongly first-order electroweak phase transition, where the Higgs boson mass is larger than the experimental lower bound of 115 GeV, and the masses of the scalar color octet is around 200 GeV. The parameter regions may be explored at the LHC with respect to the electroweak phase transition.
Elements of the phenomenology of color-octet scalars (sgluons), as predicted in the hybrid N=1/N=2 supersymmetric model, are discussed in the light of forthcoming experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.