We discuss the ${cal O}(alpha_s)$ supersymmetric QCD corrections to neutralino-stop coannihilation into a top quark and a gluon in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). This particular channel can be numerically important in wide ranges o
f the MSSM parameter space with rather light stops. We discuss technical details such as the renormalization scheme and the phase-space slicing method with two cutoffs. We also comment on improvements with respect to earlier works on the given process. Further, we study for the first time the phenomenologically very interesting interplay of neutralino-stop coannihilation with neutralino-pair annihilation into quark pairs taking the full next-to-leading order SUSY-QCD corrections into account. We demonstrate that the numerical impact of these corrections on the total (co)annihilation cross section and finally on the theoretically predicted neutralino relic density is significant.
We examine the Inert Doublet Model in light of the discovery of a Higgs-like boson with a mass of roughly 126 GeV at the LHC. We evaluate one-loop corrections to the scalar masses and perform a numerical solution of the one-loop renormalization group
equations. Demanding vacuum stability, perturbativity, and S-matrix unitarity, we compute the scale up to which the model can be extrapolated. From this we derive constraints on the model parameters in the presence of a 126 GeV Higgs boson. We perform an improved calculation of the dark matter relic density with the Higgs mass fixed to the measured value, taking into account the effects of three- and four-body final states resulting from off-shell production of gauge bosons in dark matter annihilation. Issues related to direct detection of dark matter are discussed, in particular the role of hadronic uncertainties. The predictions for the interesting decay mode h ->gamma gamma are presented for scenarios which fulfill all model constraints, and we discuss how a potential enhancement of this rate from the charged inert scalar is related to the properties of dark matter in this model. We also apply LHC limits on Higgs boson decays to invisible final states, which provide additional constraints on the mass of the dark matter candidate. Finally, we propose three benchmark points that capture different aspects of the relevant phenomenology.
We have calculated the full O(alpha_s) supersymmetric QCD corrections to neutralino-stop co-annihilation into electroweak vector and Higgs bosons within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We performed a parameter study within the pheno
menological MSSM and demonstrated that the studied co-annihilation processes are phenomenologically relevant, especially in the context of a 126 GeV Higgs-like particle. By means of an example scenario we discuss the effect of the full next-to-leading order corrections on the co-annihilation cross section and show their impact on the predicted neutralino relic density. We demonstrate that the impact of these corrections on the cosmologically preferred region of parameter space is larger than the current experimental uncertainty of WMAP data.
We compute the full O(alpha_s) supersymmetric QCD corrections for neutralino-stop co-annihilation into electroweak gauge and Higgs bosons in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We show that these annihilation channels are phenomenologic
ally relevant within the so-called phenomenological MSSM, in particular in the light of the observation of a Higgs-like particle with a mass of about 126 GeV at the LHC. We present in detail our calculation, including the renormalization scheme, the infrared treatment, and the kinematical subtleties to be addressed. Numerical results for the co-annihilation cross sections and the predicted neutralino relic density are presented. We demonstrate that the impact of including the corrections on the cosmologically preferred region of parameter space is larger than the current experimental uncertainty from WMAP data.
We study the effect of squark generation mixing on squark production and decays at the LHC in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We show that the effect can be very large despite the very strong constraints on quark flavour violation (
QFV) from experimental data on B mesons. We find that the two lightest up-type squarks ${tilde u}_{1,2}$ can have large branching ratios for the decays into $c {tildechi_1^0}$ and $t {tildechi_1^0}$ at the same time, leading to QFV signals $p p to c bar t, (t bar c)$ + missing-$E_T$ + $X$ with a significant rate. The observation of this remarkable signature would provide a powerful test of supersymmetric QFV at LHC. This could have a significant impact on the search for squarks and the determination of the underlying MSSM parameters.
We study the effect of squark-generation mixing on production and decays of squarks and gluinos at LHC in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We show that the mixing effects can be very large in a significant range of the squark-generat
ion mixing parameters despite the very strong constraints on quark-flavour violation (QFV) from experimental data on B mesons. We find that under favourable conditions the QFV decay branching ratio B(gluino -> c bar{t} (t bar{c}) neutralino_1) can be as large as about 50%, which may lead to significant QFV signals at LHC. We also find that the squark generation mixing can result in a novel multiple-edge (3- or 4-edge) structure in the charm-top quark invariant mass distribution. Further we show that the two lightest up-type squarks ~u_{1,2} can have very large branching ratios for the decays ~u_i -> c neutralino_1 and ~u_i -> t neutralino_1 simultaneously due to the mixing effect, resulting in QFV signals pp -> c bar{t} (t bar{c}) + missing-E_T + X at a significant rate at LHC. These remarkable signatures could provide a powerful test of supersymmetric QFV at LHC and could have an important impact on the search for squarks and gluinos and the determination of the MSSM parameters at LHC.
We study the effect of squark generation mixing on squark production and decays at LHC in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We show that the effect can be very large despite the very strong constraints on quark flavour violation (QFV)
from experimental data on B mesons. We find that the two lightest up-type squarks su_{1,2} can have large branching ratios for the decays into c-quark + neutralino_1 and t-quark + neutralino_1 at the same time due to squark generation mixing, leading to QFV signals pp -> c bar{t} (t bar{c}) + missing-E_T + X with a significant rate. The observation of this remarkable signature would provide a powerful test of supersymmetric QFV at LHC. This could have a significant impact on the search for squarks and the determination of the underlying MSSM parameters.
We present an extensive analysis of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking models with minimal and non-minimal flavour violation. We first demonstrate that low-energy, precision electroweak, and cosmological constraints exclude large collider-friendly
regions of the minimal parameter space. We then discuss various possibilities how flavour violation, although naturally suppressed, may still occur in gauge-mediation models. The introduction of non-minimal flavour violation at the electroweak scale is shown to relax the stringent experimental constraints, so that benchmark points, that are also cosmologically viable, can be defined and their phenomenology, i.e. squark and gaugino production cross sections with flavour violation, at the LHC can be studied.
We present an extensive analysis of squark and gaugino hadroproduction and decays in non-minimal flavour violating supersymmetry. We employ the so-called super-CKM basis to define the possible misalignment of quark and squark rotations, and we use ge
neralized (possibly complex) charges to define the mutual couplings of (s)quarks and gauge bosons/gauginos. The cross sections for all squark-(anti-)squark/gaugino pair and squark-gaugino associated production processes as well as their decay widths are then given in compact analytic form. For four different constrained supersymmetry breaking models with non-minimal flavour violation in the second/third generation squark sector only, we establish the parameter space regions allowed/favoured by low-energy, electroweak precision, and cosmological constraints and display the chirality and flavour decomposition of all up- and down-type squark mass eigenstates. Finally, we compute numerically the dependence of a representative sample of production cross sections at the LHC on the off-diagonal mass matrix elements in the experimentally allowed/favoured ranges.
