Experimental signatures of an alternative supersymmetry

Abstract

There are at least three physical arguments for some form of supersymmetry, based on experiment and observation, but conventional supersymmetry (SUSY) has not been observed up to surprisingly high experimental limits. Here we consider a radically different version, with initial bosonic fields in $32=16+\overline{16}$ (primitive sfermion) and $10=5+\overline{5}$ (primitive Higgs-related) representations of Spin(10) which do not satisfy Lorentz invariance. In the extremely early universe there is a reformation of these fields to achieve a stable Lorentz-invariant vacuum with two varieties of physical scalar-boson fields -- standard fields $\phi$ and fields $\varphi$ of a new kind. There are then two possible scenarios: If sfermion fields are in the $\phi$ sector, the present description leads back to standard physics, including the standard model, SO(10) grand unification, and conventional SUSY. But if sfermion fields belong to the $\varphi$ sector, the predictions for production and decays of sparticles are dramatically different, potentially explaining their previous nonobservation. The masses of scalar bosons are still protected from enormous radiative corrections, gauge unification can be achieved, and there is a lowest-mass superpartner as a dark matter candidate -- although it is presumed to be less abundant than the $\approx 70$ GeV candidate we introduced earlier in this same general context. Calculations by Shankar, Tallman, and Martinez in separate papers explore the possibilities for detection in future colliders, beginning with the high-luminosity LHC.