arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Suchita Kulkarni.
SModelS is a tool for the automatic interpretation of simplified-model results from the LHC. Version 1.0 of the code is now publicly available. This document provides a quick user guide for installing and running SModelS v1.0.
An inverted mass hierarchy in the squark sector, as in so-called "natural supersymmetry", requires non-universal boundary conditions at the mediation scale of supersymmetry breaking. We propose a formalism to define such boundary conditions in a basis-independent manner and apply it to generic scenarios where the third-generation squarks are light, while the first two generation squarks are heavy and near-degenerate. We show that not only is our formalism particularly well-suited to study such hierarchical squark mass patterns, but in addition the resulting soft terms at the TeV scale are manifestly compatible with the principle of minimal flavour violation, and thus automatically obey constraints from flavour physics.
We present a general procedure to decompose Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) collider signatures presenting a Z2 symmetry into Simplified Model Spectrum (SMS) topologies. Our method provides a way to cast BSM predictions for the LHC in a model independent framework, which can be directly confronted with the relevant experimental constraints. Our concrete implementation currently focusses on supersymmetry searches with missing energy, for which a large variety of SMS results from ATLAS and CMS are available. As show-case examples we apply our procedure to two scans of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. We discuss how the SMS limits constrain various particle masses and which regions of parameter space remain unchallenged by the current SMS interpretations of the LHC results.
Light neutralino dark matter can be achieved in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model if staus are rather light, with mass around 100 GeV. We perform a detailed analysis of the relevant supersymmetric parameter space, including also the possibility of light selectons and smuons, and of light higgsino- or wino-like charginos. In addition to the latest limits from direct and indirect detection of dark matter, ATLAS and CMS constraints on electroweak-inos and on sleptons are taken into account using a "simplified models" framework. Measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson at 125 GeV, which constrain amongst others the invisible decay of the Higgs boson into a pair of neutralinos, are also implemented in the analysis. We show that viable neutralino dark matter can be achieved for masses as low as 15 GeV. In this case, light charginos close to the LEP bound are required in addition to light right-chiral staus. Significant deviations are observed in the couplings of the 125 GeV Higgs boson. These constitute a promising way to probe the light neutralino dark matter scenario in the next run of the LHC.
We perform a comprehensive analysis of the polarization of the top quarks originating from sbottom-pair production at the LHC, followed by sbottom decays to top+chargino. We study moreover the expected net polarization of top quarks produced in sbottom-to-chargino and stop-to-neutralino decays in scenarios with small chargino - neutralino mass difference, where these decays may be hard to distinguish. We show that, in contrast to top quarks produced via the Standard Model processes, the average polarization of top quarks originating from these SUSY decays can obtain any value between +1 and -1. We further study the effect of this polarization on the top quark decay kinematics. On the one hand this may be used to construct measures of this polarization, on the other hand it may be used to enhance the search reach in certain scenarios. Exploiting top polarization may also prove useful for searches for "natural" SUSY with light higgsinos, which is typically very difficult to detect at the LHC.
In the framework of the minimal cosmological standard model, the $Λ$CDM model, the Dark Matter density is now known with an error of a few percent; this error is expected to shrink even further once PLANCK data are analyzed. Matching this precision by theoretical calculations implies that at least leading radiative corrections to the annihilation cross section of the dark matter particles have to be included. Here we compute one kind of large corrections in the context of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model: corrections associated with two-point function corrections on chargino and neutralino lines. These can be described by effective chargino/neutralino-fermion-sfermion and chargino/neutralino-chargino/neutralino-Higgs couplings. We also employ one-loop corrected chargino and neutralino masses, using a recently developed version of the on-shell renormalization scheme. The resulting correction to the predicted Dark Matter density depends strongly on parameter space, but can easily reach 3%.
Previous work on t-b-τYukawa-unified supersymmetry, as expected from SUSY GUT theories based on the gauge group SO(10), tended to have exceedingly large electroweak fine-tuning (EWFT). Here, we examine supersymmetric models where we simultaneously require low EWFT ("natural SUSY") and a high degree of Yukawa coupling unification, along with a light Higgs scalar with m_h\sim125 GeV. As Yukawa unification requires large tanβ\sim50, while EWFT requires rather light third generation squarks and low μ\sim100-250 GeV, B-physics constraints from BR(B\to X_sγ) and BR(B_s\to μ+μ-) can be severe. We are able to find models with EWFT Δ\lesssim 50-100 (better than 1-2% EWFT) and with Yukawa unification as low as R_yuk\sim1.3 (30% unification) if B-physics constraints are imposed. This may be improved to R_yuk\sim1.2 if additional small flavor violating terms conspire to improve accord with B-constraints. We present several Yukawa-unified natural SUSY (YUNS) benchmark points. LHC searches will be able to access gluinos in the lower 1-2 TeV portion of their predicted mass range although much of YUNS parameter space may lie beyond LHC14 reach. If heavy Higgs bosons can be accessed at a high rate, then the rare H, A\to μ+μ- decay might allow a determination of tanβ\sim50 as predicted by YUNS models. Finally, the predicted light higgsinos should be accessible to a linear e+e- collider with \sqrt{s}\sim0.5 TeV.
In this work, we analyze the electroweak loop corrections to the Neutralino dark matter relic density in the framework of effective coupling. In the first part, we comment on the generic features of the corrections and quantitative changes to the predicted relic density. We analyze the correlation between the characteristics of effective couplings to the nature of neutralino. Effective couplings, however, absorb only the most dominant one loop corrections and are not an exact calculation. In the second part, we assess the validity of effective couplings by comparing them to the full one loop calculations in various regions of parameter space.
A Standard Model-like Higgs near 125 GeV in the MSSM requires multi-TeV stop masses, or a near-maximal contribution to its mass from stop mixing. We investigate the maximal mixing scenario, and in particular its prospects for being realized it in potentially realistic GUT models. We work out constraints on the possible GUT-scale soft terms, which we compare with what can be obtained from some well-known mechanisms of SUSY breaking mediation. Finally, we analyze two promising scenarios in detail, namely gaugino mediation and gravity mediation with non-universal Higgs masses.
We study CP violation in the two-body decay of a scalar tau into a neutralino and a tau, which should be probed at the LHC and ILC. From the normal tau polarization, a CP asymmetry is defined which is sensitive to the CP phases of the trilinear scalar coupling parameter $A_τ$, the gaugino mass parameter $M_1$, and the higgsino mass parameter $μ$ in the stau-neutralino sector of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Asymmetries of more than 70% are obtained in scenarios with strong stau mixing. As a result, detectable CP asymmetries in stau decays at the LHC are found, motivating further detailed experimental studies for probing the SUSY CP phases.
The extracted value of the relic density has reached the few per-cent level precision. One can therefore no longer content oneself with calculations of this observable where the annihilation processes are computed at tree-level, especially in supersymmetry where radiative corrections are usually large. Implementing full one-loop corrections to all annihilation processes that would be needed in a scan over parameters is a daunting task. On the other hand one may ask whether the bulk of the corrections are taken into account through effective couplings of the neutralino that improve the tree-level calculation and would be easy to implement. We address this issue by concentrating in this first study on the neutralino coupling to i) fermions and sfermions and ii) Z. After constructing the effective couplings we compare their efficiency compared to the full one-loop calculation and comment on the failures and success of the approach. As a bonus we point out that large non decoupling effects of heavy sfermions could in principle be measured in the annihilation process, a point of interest in view of the latest limit on the squark masses from the LHC. We also comment on the scheme dependencies of the one-loop corrected results.
We discuss the choice of input parameters for the renormalization of the chargino and neutralino sector in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) in the on-shell scheme. We show that one should chose the masses of a bino-like, a wino-like and a higgsino-like state as inputs in order to avoid large corrections to the masses of the other eigenstates in this sector. We also show that schemes where the higgsino-like input state is a neutralino are more stable than those where the mass of the higgsino-like chargino is used as input. The most stable scheme uses the masses of the wino-like chargino as well as the masses of the bino- and higgsino-like neutralinos as inputs.
We address the issue of the cosmological bias between matter and galaxy distributions, looking at dark-matter haloes as a first step to characterize galaxy clustering. Starting from the linear density field at high redshift, we follow the centre of mass trajectory of the material that will form each halo at late times (proto-halo). We adopt a fluid-like description for the evolution of perturbations in the proto-halo distribution, which is coupled to the matter density field via gravity. We present analytical solutions for the density and velocity fields, in the context of renormalized perturbation theory. We start from the linear solution, then compute one-loop corrections for the propagator and the power spectrum. Finally we analytically resum the propagator and we use a suitable extension of the time-renormalization-group method (Pietroni 2008) to resum the power spectrum. For halo masses M<10^{14} Msol/h our results at z=0 are in good agreement with N-body simulations. Our model is able to predict the halo-matter cross spectrum with an accuracy of 5 per cent up to k = 0.1 h/Mpc approaching the requirements of future galaxy redshift surveys.
Approximate analytical solutions of the Boltzmann equation for particles that are either extremely relativistic or non-relativistic when they decouple from the thermal bath are well established. However, no analytical formula for the relic density of particles that are semi-relativistic at decoupling is yet known. We propose a new ansatz for the thermal average of the annihilation cross sections for such particles, and find a semi-analytical treatment for calculating their relic densities. As examples, we consider Majorana- and Dirac-type neutrinos. We show that such semi-relativistic relics cannot be good cold Dark Matter candidates. However, late decays of meta-stable semi-relativistic relics might have released a large amount of entropy, thereby diluting the density of other, unwanted relics.