We compute the wall velocity in the MSSM. We therefore generalize the SM equations of motion for bubble walls moving through a hot plasma at the electroweak phase transition and calculate the friction terms which describe the viscosity of the plasma. We give the general expressions and apply them to a simple model where stops, tops and W bosons contribute to the friction. In a wide range of parameters including those which fulfil the requirements of baryogenesis we find a wall velocity of order v = 0.05-0.1 much below the SM value.
We discuss the generation of the baryon asymmetry by a strong first order electroweak phase transition in the early universe, particularly in the context of the MSSM. This requires a thorough numerical treatment of the bubble wall profile in the case of two Higgs fields. CP violating complex particle masses varying with the Higgs field in the wall are essential. Since in the MSSM there is no indication of spontaneous CP violation around the critical temperature (contrary to the NMSSM) we have to rely on standard explicit CP violation. Using the WKB approximation for particles in the plasma we are led to Boltzmann transport equations for the difference of left-handed particles and their CP conjugates. This asymmetry is finally transformed into a baryon asymmetry by out of equilibrium sphaleron transitions in the symmetric phase. We solve the transport equations and find a baryon asymmetry depending mostly on the CP violating phases and the wall velocity.
We examine the neutralino relic density in the presence of a light top squark, such as the one required for the realization of the electroweak baryogenesis mechanism, within the minimal supersymmetric standard model. We show that there are three clearly distinguishable regions of parameter space, where the relic density is consistent with WMAP and other cosmological data. These regions are characterized by annihilation cross sections mediated by either light Higgs bosons, Z bosons, or by the co-annihilation with the lightest stop. Tevatron collider experiments can test the presence of the light stop in most of the parameter space. In the co-annihilation region, however, the mass difference between the light stop and the lightest neutralino varies between 15 and 30 GeV, presenting an interesting challenge for stop searches at hadron colliders. We present the prospects for direct detection of dark matter, which provides a complementary way of testing this scenario. We also derive the required structure of the high energy soft supersymmetry breaking mass parameters where the neutralino is a dark matter candidate and the stop spectrum is consistent with electroweak baryogenesis and the present bounds on the lightest Higgs mass.
In a supersymmetric (SUSY) theory, the IR-contributions to the Higgs mass are calculable below the mediation scale $Lambda_{text{UV}}$ in terms of the IR field content and parameters. However, logarithmic sensitivity to physics at $Lambda_{text{UV}}$ remains. In this work we present a first example of a framework, dictated by symmetries, to supersoften these logarithms from the matter sector. The result is a model with finite, IR-calculable corrections to the Higgs mass. This requires the introduction of new fields -- the `lumberjacks -- whose role is to screen the UV-sensitive logs. These models have considerably reduced fine-tuning, by more than an order of magnitude for high scale supersymmetry. This impacts interpretations of the natural parameter space, suggesting it may be premature to declare a naturalness crisis for high-scale SUSY.
We consider hadronic top quark pair production and pair production in association with a photon or a $Z$ boson to probe electroweak dipole couplings in $tbar{b}W$, $tbar{t}gamma$ and $tbar{t}Z$ interactions. We demonstrate how measurements of these processes at the 13 TeV LHC can be combined to disentangle and constrain anomalous dipole operators. The construction of cross section ratios allows us to significantly reduce various uncertainties and exploit orthogonal sensitivity between the $tbar{t}gamma$ and $tbar{t}Z$ couplings. In addition, we show that angular correlations in $tbar{t}$ production can be used to constrain the remaining $tbar{b}W$ dipole operator. Our approach yields excellent sensitivity to the anomalous couplings and can be a further step towards precise and direct measurements of the top quark electroweak interactions.
We discuss aspects of poor infrared behaviour of the perturbation expansion for the effective potential of the Higgs mode near the electroweak phase transition, and enlarge on the discovery that higher order effects weaken the transition. In addition, we outline our recent attempts at understanding the dynamics involved in the propagation of bubbles formed in the first order transition.