Search

We study the meson spectrum of the N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with N = 2 fundamental hypermultiplets for a finite electric field by using the D3/D7 model. The spectrum for scalar and vector mesons is computed by analyzing the (quasi-)normal modes for the fluctuations of the D7-brane embedding and gauge fields. In the presence of an electric field, two different phases in the background are realized: the meson and dissociation phases. In this paper, we analyze the meson spectrum of scalar and vector mesons for all ranges of the electric field and explore the effect of the electric field on the meson spectrum, that is, the Stark effect. In the meson spectrum, we observe the avoided crossing between different levels due to the coupling of fluctuations via the electric field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higgsinos and Winos in the supersymmetric Standard Model are prime candidates for dark matter due to their weakly interacting nature. The mass differences between their charged components (charginos) and neutral components (neutralinos) become degenerate when other superparticles are heavy, resulting in long-lived charginos. In the case of the Winos, the mass difference is approximately 160 MeV across a wide range of the parameter space. Consequently, the chargino decays into the lightest neutralino, emitting a single charged pion. For Higgsinos, however, mass differences ranging from O(0.1) GeV to O(1) GeV are possible, leading to a variety of decay channels. In this paper, we extend our previous analysis of Wino decay to the chargino with a larger mass difference. We emphasize characterizing its decay signatures through leptonic and hadronic modes. By utilizing the latest experimental data, we perform a comprehensive study of the decay rate calculations incorporating these hadronic modes to determine the impact on the predicted chargino lifetime. Additionally, we conduct next-to-leading order (NLO) calculations for the leptonic decay modes. Our NLO results can be applied to the case of more general fermionic electroweak multiplets, e.g., quintuplet dark matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a remarkable paper, Dienes discovered that the absence of physical tachyons in closed string theory is intimately related to oscillations in the net number of bosonic minus fermionic degrees of freedom, a pattern predicted by an underlying misaligned supersymmetry. The average of these oscillations was linked to an exponential growth controlled by an effective central charge Ceff smaller than the expected inverse Hagedorn temperature. Dienes also conjectured that Ceff should vanish when tachyons are absent. In this paper, we revisit this problem and show that boson-fermion oscillations are realised even when tachyons are present in the physical spectrum. In fact, we prove that the average growth rate Ceff is set by the mass of the "lightest" state, be it massless or tachyonic, and coincides with the effective inverse Hagedorn temperature of the associated thermal theory. We also provide a general proof that the necessary and sufficient condition for classical stability is the vanishing of the sector averaged sum which implies Ceff = 0, in agreement with Dienes' conjecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Higgs boson was the last fundamental piece of the Standard Model to be experimentally confirmed. LHC is embarked in a quest to probe the possibility that this particle provides a portal to new physics. One front of this quest consists in measuring the interactions of the Higgs with itself and with other SM particles to a high precision. In a more exotic front, the LHC is searching for the possibility that a pair of Higgses (HH) is the evidence of a new resonance. Such resonances are predicted in models with extended Higgs sectors, extra dimensions, and in models with exotic bound states. In this paper we show how scalar quirks in Folded Supersymmetry can give rise to HH resonances. We point out a viable sector of the parameter space in which HH is the dominant decay channel for these squirkonium bound states. We found that future runs of the LHC could discover HH resonances in the range of 0.5–1.6 TeV under reasonable assumptions. Furthermore, for a given mass and width of the HH signal, the model predicts the branching ratio of the subsequent decay modes of the heavy resonance. Finding the extra decay modes in the predicted pattern can serve as a smoking gun to confirm the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we develop a Young diagram approach to constructing higher dimensional operators formed from massless superfields and their superderivatives in N = 1 supersymmetry. These operators are in one-to-one correspondence with non-factorizable terms in on-shell superamplitudes, which can be studied with massless spinor helicity techniques. By relating all spin-helicity variables to certain representations under a hidden U(N) symmetry behind the theory, we show each non-factorizable superamplitude can be identified with a specific Young tableau. The desired tableau is picked out of a more general set of U(N) tensor products by enforcing the supersymmetric Ward identities. We then relate these Young tableaux to higher dimensional superfield operators and list the rules to read operators directly from Young tableau. Using this method, we present several illustrative examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the process of vacuum decay in supersymmetric models related to flux compactifications. In particular, we describe these instabilities within supersymmetric Lagrangians for a single three-form multiplet. This multiplet combines scalar fields, representing the moduli fields in four dimensions, with 3-form fields that influence the potential for these moduli via the integer flux of their associated 4-form field strength. Furthermore, using supersymmetry as a guide we obtain the form of the couplings of these fields to the membranes that act as sources to the 3-form potentials. Adding small supersymmetry breaking terms to these Lagrangians one can obtain instanton solutions describing the decay of the vacua in these models by the formation of a membrane bubble. These instantons combine the usual Coleman-de Luccia and the Brown-Teitelboim formalisms in a single unified model. We study simple numerical examples of theories with and without gravity in this new framework and generalize known Euclidean methods to accomodate the simulataneous inclusion of scalar fields and charged membranes to these instanton solutions. Moreover, we show explicitly in these examples how one recovers the static supersymmetric solutions in the limiting case where the supersymmetry breaking terms vanish. In this limit, the bubble becomes infinite and flat and represents a hybrid between the usual supersymmetric domain walls of field theory models and the brane solutions interpolating between the supersymmetric vacua; a sort of dressed supermembrane BPS solution. Finally, we briefly comment on the implications of these solutions in cosmological models based on the String Theory Landscape where these type of 4d effective theories could be relevant in inflationary scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a search for hypothetical massive, charged, long-lived particles with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at s = 13 TeV. These particles are expected to move significantly slower than the speed of light and should be identifiable by their high transverse momenta and anomalously large specific ionisation losses, dE/dx. Trajectories reconstructed solely by the inner tracking system and a dE/dx measurement in the pixel detector layers provide sensitivity to particles with lifetimes down to O (1) ns with a mass, measured using the Bethe–Bloch relation, ranging from 100 GeV to 3 TeV. Interpretations for pair-production of R-hadrons, charginos and staus in scenarios of supersymmetry compatible with these particles being long-lived are presented, with mass limits extending considerably beyond those from previous searches in broad ranges of lifetime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chirality plays an important role in understanding the dynamics of quantum field theories. In this paper, we study the dynamics of models where renormalization group flows change the chiral structure of the theory. We introduce model building tools and construct models with a variety of chirality flows: from the appearance of new massless composite matter, to the development of mass gaps to completely general changes in the chiral matter content. The stability of chirally symmetric vacua is sensitive to the interplay between non-perturbative dynamics and deformations necessary to generate chirality flows. In particular, we show that chirality flows can be easily induced by deformations of s-confining models. On the other hand, in the absence of true s-confinement, the required deformations destabilize chirally symmetric ground states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the quantum dynamics of a system of n Abelian N = 1 vector multiplets coupled to 1 2 n n + 1 chiral multiplets which parametrise the Hermitian symmetric space Sp(2n, ℝ)/U(n). In the presence of supergravity, this model is super-Weyl invariant and possesses the maximal non-compact duality group Sp(2n, ℝ) at the classical level. These symmetries should be respected by the logarithmically divergent term (the "induced action") of the effective action obtained by integrating out the vector multiplets. In computing the effective action, one has to deal with non-minimal operators for which the known heat kernel techniques are not directly applicable, even in flat (super)space. In this paper we develop a method to compute the induced action in Minkowski superspace. The induced action is derived in closed form and has a simple structure. It is a higher-derivative superconformal sigma model on Sp(2n, ℝ)/U(n). The obtained N = 1 results are generalised to the case of N = 2 local supersymmetry: a system of n Abelian N = 2 vector multiplets coupled to N = 2 chiral multiplets XI parametrising Sp(2n, ℝ)/U(n). The induced action is shown to be proportional to ∫ d 4 x d 4 θ d 4 θ ¯ E K X X ¯ , where K X X ¯ is the Kähler potential for Sp(2n, ℝ)/U(n). We also apply our method to compute DeWitt's a2 coefficients in some non-supersymmetric theories with non-minimal operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study a class of heterotic Landau-Ginzburg models. We show that the action can be written as a sum of BRST-exact and non-exact terms. The non-exact terms involve the pullback of the complexified Kähler form to the worldsheet and terms arising from the superpotential, which is a Grassmann-odd holomorphic function of the superfields. We then demonstrate that the action is invariant on-shell under supersymmetry transformations up to a total derivative. Finally, we extend the analysis to the case in which the superpotential is not holomorphic. In this case, we find that supersymmetry imposes a constraint which relates the nonholomorphic parameters of the superpotential to the Hermitian curvature. Various special cases of this constraint have previously been used to establish properties of Mathai-Quillen form analogues which arise in the corresponding heterotic Landau-Ginzburg models. There, it was claimed that supersymmetry imposes those constraints. Our goal in this paper is to support that claim. The analysis for the nonholomorphic case also reveals a constraint imposed by supersymmetry that we did not anticipate from studies of Mathai-Quillen form analogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a unified perspective on sphere consistent truncations based on the classical geometric properties of sphere bundles. The backbone of our approach is the global angular form for the sphere. A universal formula for the Kaluza-Klein ansatz of the flux threading the n-sphere captures the full nonabelian isometry group SO(n + 1) and scalar deformations associated to the coset SL(n + 1, ℝ)/SO(n + 1). In all cases, the scalars enter the ansatz in a shift by an exact form. We find that the latter can be completely fixed by imposing mild conditions, motivated by supersymmetry, on the scalar potential arising from dimensional reduction of the higher dimensional theory. We comment on the role of the global angular form in the derivation of the topological couplings of the lower-dimensional theory, and on how this perspective could provide inroads into the study of consistent truncations with less supersymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a simplified likelihood framework designed to facilitate the reuse, reinterpretation and combination of LHC experimental results. The framework is based on the same underlying structure as the widely used HistFactory format, but with systematic uncertainties considered at linear order only. This simplification leads to large gains in computing performance for the evaluation and maximization of the likelihood function, compared to the original statistical model. The framework accurately describes non-Gaussian effects from low event counts, as well as correlated uncertainties in combinations. While primarily targeted towards binned descriptions of the data, it is also applicable to unbinned models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most natural expectation away from asymptotic limits in moduli space of supergravity theories is the desert scenario, where there are few states between massless fields and the quantum gravity cutoff. In this paper we initiate a systematic study of these regions deep in the moduli space, and use it to place a bound on the number of massless modes by relating it to the black hole species problem. There exists a consistent sub-Planckian UV cutoff (the species scale) which resolves the black hole species problem without bounding the number of light modes. We reevaluate this in the context of supersymmetric string vacua in the desert region and show that even though heuristically the species scale is compatible with expectations, the BPS states of the actual string vacua lead to a stronger dependence of the cutoff scale on the number of massless modes. We propose that this discrepancy, which can be captured by the "BPS desert conjecture", resurrects the idea of a uniform bound on the number of light modes as a way to avoid the black hole species problem. This conjecture also implies a stronger form of the Tadpole Conjecture, which leads to an obstruction in stabilizing all moduli semi-classically for large number of moduli in flux compactifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a continuation of our previous papers arXiv:2109.07639 and arXiv:2202.08196, we study the linearized structure of the manifestly 4D, N = 2 supersymmetric theory of the cubic couplings of the higher spin gauge superfields to the matter hypermultiplets. We consider in detail the superfield equations of motion, construct the conserved hypermultiplet superfield currents, explore their component structure (basically in the bosonic sector) and compare it with the corresponding currents in the conventional higher-spin bosonic theory. We thoroughly study the N = 2 spin 2 and 3 models as instructive examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaugino condensation on D-branes wrapping internal cycles gives a mechanism to stabilize the associated moduli. According to the effective field theory, this gives rise, when combined with fluxes, to supersymmetric AdS4 solutions. In this paper we provide a ten-dimensional description of these vacua. We first find the supersymmetry equations for type II AdS4 vacua with gaugino condensates on D-branes, in the framework of generalized complex geometry. We then solve them for type IIB compactifications with gaugino condensates on smeared D7-branes. We show that supersymmetry requires a (conformal) Calabi-Yau manifold and imaginary self-dual three-form fluxes with an additional (0,3) component. The latter is proportional to the cosmological constant, whose magnitude is determined by the expectation value of the gaugino condensate and the stabilized volume of the cycle wrapped by the branes. This confirms, qualitatively and quantitatively, the results obtained using effective field theory. We find that exponential separation between the AdS and the KK scales seems possible as long as the three-form fluxes are such that their (0,3) component is exponentially suppressed. As for the localized solution, it requires going beyond SU(3)-structure internal manifolds. Nevertheless, we show that the action can be evaluated on-shell without relying on the details of such complicated configuration. We find that no "perfect square" structure occurs, and the result is divergent. We compute the four-fermion contributions, including a counterterm, needed to cancel these divergences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use the superconformal approach to derive the higher derivative action for 풩 = 3 Poincaré supergravity in four space-time dimensions. We first study the coupling of 풩 = 3 vector multiplets to conformal supergravity. Thereafter we combine it with the pure 풩 = 3 conformal supergravity action and use a minimum of three vector multiplets as compensators to arrive at Poincaré supergravity with higher derivative corrections. We give a general prescription on how to eliminate the auxiliary fields in an iterative manner and obtain the supergravity action order by order in derivatives. We also show that the truncation of the action at fourth order in derivatives is a consistent truncation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SUSY SO(10) GUT is in severe tension with the experimental bounds on proton partial lifetimes because proton decay mediated by colored Higgsinos (dimension-five proton decay) is too rapid. In this paper, we pursue the possibility that a texture of the Yukawa coupling matrices in a renormalizable SUSY SO(10) GUT model suppresses dimension-five proton decay. We focus on a general renormalizable SUSY SO(10) GUT model which contains 10 + 126 + 126 ¯ + 120 representation fields and where the Yukawa coupling matrices of the 16 matter fields with the 10, 126 ¯ , 120 fields, Y10, Y126, Y120, provide the quark and lepton Yukawa couplings and Majorana mass of the singlet neutrinos. We find that if components in certain flavor bases, Y 10 u R d R , Y 126 u R d R , Y 10 u R s R , Y 126 u R s R , Y 10 u L d L , Y 126 u L d L , Y 10 u L s L , Y 126 u L s L , Y 10 u L u L , Y 126 u L u L , are all on the order of the up quark Yukawa coupling, dimension-five proton decay can be suppressed while the Yukawa coupling matrices still reproduce the realistic quark and lepton masses and flavor mixings. We numerically obtain specific Yukawa coupling matrices satisfying the above conditions, calculate proton partial lifetimes from them and evaluate how dimension-five proton decay is suppressed when these conditions are met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the first instance of a model of D-branes at Calabi-Yau singularities where supersymmetry is broken dynamically into stable vacua has been proposed. This construction was based on a system of N regular and M = 1 fractional branes placed at the tip of the so-called (orientifolded) Octagon singularity. In this paper we show that this model admits a large M generalization, having the same low energy effective dynamics. This opens up the possibility that the effect on geometry is smooth, and amenable to describing the gauge theory all along the RG flow, including the deep IR, in terms of a weakly coupled gravity dual background. The relevance of this result in the wider context of the string landscape and the Swampland program is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supersymmetric models with nearly-degenerate light higgsinos provide a consistent solution to the naturalness problem under rigorous constraints from current experimental searches for sparticles. However, it is challenging to probe the compressed scenarios at collider experiments due to the hard-to-detect soft final states. To overcome this issue, strategies have been proposed to take advantage of the photon fusion along the ultraperipheral collision at the Large Hadron Collider, which are feasible with the forward detectors installed at the ATLAS and CMS detectors. In this paper, we demonstrate a search strategy for the chargino pair production via photon fusion at the 13 TeV LHC, realizing a good sensitivity that can exclude m χ ~ 1 ± up to 270 GeV (308 GeV) for a mass splitting ∆m( χ ~ 1 ± , χ ~ 1 0 ) ∈ [1, 15] GeV with an integrated luminosity of 100 fb−1 (3 ab−1) at 95% C.L. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novelty detection is a task of machine learning that aims at detecting novel events without a prior knowledge. In particular, its techniques can be applied to detect unexpected signals from new phenomena at colliders. In this paper, we develop an analysis scheme that exploits the complementarity, originally studied in ref. [1], between isolation-based and clustering-based novelty evaluators. This approach can significantly improve the performance and overall applicability of novelty detection at colliders, which we demonstrate using a variety of two dimensional Gaussian samples mimicking collider events. As a further proof of principle, we subsequently apply this scheme to the detection of two significantly different signals at the LHC featuring a t t ¯ γγ final state: t t ¯ h , giving a narrow resonance in the diphoton mass spectrum, and gravity-mediated supersymmetry, resulting in broad distributions at high transverse momentum. Compared to existing dedicated searches at the LHC, the sensitivities for detecting both signals are found to be encouraging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supergravity brane solutions allow for a generalised type of Kaluza-Klein reduction onto brane worldvolumes. The known replacement of a flat worldvolume metric by a Ricci-flat metric constitutes a consistent Kaluza-Klein truncation of the starting higher-dimensional supergravity theory down to a lower-dimensional pure gravity theory. This paper shows how to extend such a brane-worldvolume pure-gravity consistent truncation to that for a full nonlinear supergravity theory for the Type IIB D3-brane and the M-theory/Type IIA M5-brane. The extension of worldvolume supersymmetry is given by the unbroken supersymmetry of the original flat "skeleton" brane. Compatibility with further worldvolume diagonal and transverse vertical dimensional reductions is also shown, providing the brane-worldvolume supergravity embeddings of all descendants of the skeleton D3- and M5-branes. Examples are given of brane-worldvolume supergravity solutions embedded into the corresponding higher-dimensional supergravities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vacuum compactifications may suffer from instabilities under small perturbations or tunnel effects; both are difficult to analyze. In this paper we consider the issue from a higher-dimensional perspective. We first look at how stability works for supersymmetric vacua, where it is widely expected to hold. We first show that the nucleation of brane bubbles in type II AdS compactifications is forbidden in the probe approximation by a simple argument involving pure spinors and calibrations. We then adapt familiar positive-energy theorems directly to M-theory and type II supergravity, rather than to their effective lower-dimensional reductions, also showing how to consistently include localized sources. We finally initiate an analysis of how these arguments might be extended to non-supersymmetric vacua. In M-theory, at the lower-derivative level, we find that the most natural modifications fail to stabilize the skew-whiffed and Englert vacua. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we derive the action for N = 3 conformal supergravity in four space-time dimensions. We construct a density formula for N = 3 conformal supergravity based on the superform action principle. Finally, we embed the N = 3 Weyl multiplet in the density formula to obtain the invariant action for N = 3 conformal supergravity. There are two inequivalent embeddings by changing a particular coefficient from real to imaginary. They lead to invariant actions, which will either be the supersymmetrization of the Weyl square term or the Pontryagin density in the eventuality of gauge fixing to Poincaré supergravity. As a consistency check of our formalism, we will show that the supersymmetrization of the Pontryagin density is a total derivative. We will demonstrate this for purely bosonic terms. We will also present the complete action for the supersymmetrization of Weyl square term. We also discuss consistent truncation of N = 4 Weyl multiplet to N = 3 Weyl multiplet and use it for a robust check of our results using the earlier known results in N = 4 conformal supergravity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correlation functions of the higher-spin current operators in large N Chern-Simons theories are important to understand approximate higher-spin symmetries in these theories. Moreover, they also provide stronger checks for conjectured dualities in these theories. In this paper, we compute the two, three and four-point functions of the operators in the spin zero multiplet of N = 2 Supersymmetric vector matter Chern-Simons theory at large N to all orders of 't Hooft coupling. While the two- and three-point functions are computed by solving the Schwinger-Dyson equation, this method becomes intractable for the computation of the four-point functions. Thereby, we use bootstrap method to evaluate four-point function of scalar operator J 0 f = ψ ¯ ψ and J 0 b = ϕ ¯ ϕ. Interestingly, because J 0 f J 0 f J 0 b is a contact term, the four point function of J 0 f operator resembles the corresponding correlation function in the free theory, up to overall coupling constant dependent factors and up to some 'bulk AdS' contact terms. On the other hand the J 0 b four-point function receives an additional contribution compared to the free theory expression due to the J 0 f exchange. We find that the double discontinuity of this single trace operator J 0 f vanishes and hence it only contributes to AdS-contact term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the commutation relations of light-ray operators in conformal field theories. We first establish the algebra of light-ray operators built out of higher spin currents in free CFTs and find explicit expressions for the corresponding structure constants. The resulting algebras are remarkably similar to the generalized Zamolodchikov's W∞ algebra in a two-dimensional conformal field theory. We then compute the commutator of generalized energy flow operators in a generic, interacting CFTs in d > 2. We show that it receives contribution from the energy flow operator itself, as well as from the light-ray operators built out of scalar primary operators of dimension ∆ ≤ d − 2, that are present in the OPE of two stress-energy tensors. Commutators of light-ray operators considered in the present paper lead to CFT sum rules which generalize the superconvergence relations and naturally connect to the dispersive sum rules, both of which have been studied recently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the supersymmetry transformations of gauged SO(4) supergravity coupled to extra hypermultiplets in three dimensions, and find large families of smooth BPS solutions that preserve four supersymmetries. These BPS solutions are part of the consistent truncation of some families of six-dimensional superstrata. From the three-dimensional perspective, these solutions give rise to "smoothly-capped BTZ" geometries. We show how the twisting of the spin connection, the holomorphy of the fields, and the Chern-Simons connections all play an essential role in the existence of these supersymmetric solutions. This paper also closes the circle on the consistent truncation of superstrata, showing precisely how every feature of the superstratum enters into the three-dimensional BPS structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New techniques based on Exceptional Field Theory have recently allowed for the calculation of the Kaluza-Klein spectra of certain AdS4 solutions of D = 11 and massive IIA supergravity. These are the solutions that consistently uplift on S7 and S6 from vacua of maximal four-dimensional supergravity with SO(8) and ISO(7) gaugings. In this paper, we provide an algorithmic procedure to compute the complete Kaluza-Klein spectrum of five such AdS4 solutions, all of them N = 1, and give the first few Kaluza-Klein levels. These solutions preserve SO(3) and U(1) × U(1) internal symmetry in D = 11, and U(1) (two of them) and no continuous symmetry in type IIA. Together with previously discussed cases, our results exhaust the Kaluza-Klein spectra of known supersymmetric AdS4 solutions in D = 11 and type IIA in the relevant class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent confirmation by the Fermilab-based Muon g-2 experiment of the (g − 2)μ anomaly has important implications for allowed particle spectra in softly broken supersymmetry (SUSY) models with neutralino dark matter (DM). Generally, the DM has to be quite light, with the mass up to a few hundred GeV, and bino-dominated if it is to provide most of DM in the Universe. Otherwise, a higgsino or wino dominated DM is also allowed but only as a strongly subdominant component of at most a few percent of the total density. These general patterns can easily be found in the phenomenological models of SUSY but in GUT-constrained scenarios this proves much more challenging. In this paper we revisit the issue in the framework of some unified SUSY models with different GUT boundary conditions on the soft masses. We study the so-called non-universal gaugino model (NUGM) in which the mass of the gluino is disunified from those of the bino and the wino and an SO(10) and an SU(5) GUT-inspired models as examples. We find that in these unified frameworks the above two general patterns of DM can also be found, and thus the muon anomaly can also be accommodated, unlike in the simplest frameworks of the CMSSM or the NUHM. We show the resulting values of direct detection cross-section for points that do and do not satisfy the muon anomaly. On the other hand, it will be challenging to access those solutions at the LHC because the resulting spectra are generally very compressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We continue our studies of the correspondence between 4d N = 2 SCFTs and 2d W-algebras. The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between 2d lisse W-algebras and their 4d SCFT partners. The lisse W-algebra is the W-algebra whose associated Zhu's C2 algebra is finite dimensional. As the associated variety of Zhu's C2 algebra is identified with the Higgs branch in the 4d/2d correspondence, the lisse condition is equivalent to the absence of the Higgs branch on the 4d side. We classify 4d N = 2 SCFTs which do not admit Higgs branch, then these theories would give lisse W-algebras through the 4d/2d correspondence. In particular, we predict the existence of a large class of new non-admissible lisse W-algebras, which have not been studied before. The 4d theories corresponding to lisse W-algebra can appear in the Higgs branches of generic 4d N = 2 SCFTs, therefore they are crucial to understand the Higgs branches of N = 2 SCFTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this note we study IR limits of pure two-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories with semisimple non-simply-connected gauge groups including SU(k)/ℤk, SO(2k)/ℤ2, Sp(2k)/ℤ2, E6/ℤ3, and E7/ℤ2 for various discrete theta angles, both directly in the gauge theory and also in nonabelian mirrors, extending a classification begun in previous work. We find in each case that there are supersymmetric vacua for precisely one value of the discrete theta angle, and no supersymmetric vacua for other values, hence supersymmetry is broken in the IR for most discrete theta angles. Furthermore, for the one distinguished value of the discrete theta angle for which supersymmetry is unbroken, the theory has as many twisted chiral multiplet degrees of freedom in the IR as the rank. We take this opportunity to further develop the technology of nonabelian mirrors to discuss how the mirror to a G gauge theory differs from the mirror to a G/K gauge theory for K a subgroup of the center of G. In particular, the discrete theta angles in these cases are considerably more intricate than those of the pure gauge theories studied in previous papers, so we discuss the realization of these more complex discrete theta angles in the mirror construction. We find that discrete theta angles, both in the original gauge theory and their mirrors, are intimately related to the description of centers of universal covering groups as quotients of weight lattices by root sublattices. We perform numerous consistency checks, comparing results against basic group-theoretic relations as well as with decomposition, which describes how two-dimensional theories with one-form symmetries (such as pure gauge theories with nontrivial centers) decompose into disjoint unions, in this case of pure gauge theories with quotiented gauge groups and discrete theta angles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large number of moduli fields arising in a generic string theory compactification makes a complete computation of the low energy effective theory infeasible. A common strategy to solve this problem is to consider Calabi-Yau manifolds with discrete symmetries, which effectively reduce the number of moduli and make the computation of the truncated Effective Field Theory possible. In this approach, however, the couplings (e.g., the masses) of the truncated fields are left undetermined. In the present paper we discuss the tree-level mass spectrum of type-IIB flux compactifications at Large Complex Structure, focusing on models with a reduced one-dimensional complex structure sector. We compute the tree-level spectrum for the dilaton and complex structure moduli, including the truncated fields, which can be expressed entirely in terms of the known couplings of the reduced theory. We show that the masses of this set of fields are naturally heavy at vacua consistent with the KKLT construction, and we discuss other phenomenologically interesting scenarios where the spectrum involves fields much lighter than the gravitino. We also derive the probability distribution for the masses on the ensemble of flux vacua, and show that it exhibits universal features independent of the details of the compactification. We check our results on a large sample of flux vacua constructed in an orientifold of the Calabi-Yau W ℙ 1 1 1 1 4 4 . Finally, we also discuss the conditions under which the spectrum derived here could arise in more general compactifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we derive the most general curvature squared action coupled to an arbitrary number of vector multiplets in four dimensional N = 2 supergravity using the dilaton Weyl multiplet. The action that we derive is encoded in a single holomorphic prepotential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A keV-scale gravitino arising from a minimal supersymmetric (SUSY) Standard Model (MSSM) is an interesting possibility since the small scale problems that the ΛCDM model encounters in the modern cosmology could be alleviated with the keV-scale gravitino serving as the warm dark matter (WDM). Such a light gravitino asks for a low scale supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking for which the gauge mediation (GM) is required as a consistent SUSY-breaking mediation mechanism. In this paper, we show upper bounds of the masses of the second CP-even Higgs boson H and the CP-odd Higgs boson A, assuming the keV-scale gravitino to be responsible for the current DM relic abundance: the upper bound on the mass of H/A is found to be ∼ 4 TeV for the gravitino mass of O 10 − 100 keV. Interestingly, the mass of H/A can be as small as 2–3 TeV and the predicted tan β is as large as 55–60 for the gravitino mass of O 10 keV. This will be tested in the near future Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the problem of metastable SUSY breaking in the landscape. While this is clearly crucial for the various de Sitter proposals, it is also interesting to consider the SUSY breaking challenge in the AdS context. For example, it could be that a stronger form of the non-SUSY AdS conjecture holds: it would forbid even metastable non-SUSY AdS in cases where the SUSY-breaking scale is parametrically above/below the AdS scale. At the technical level, the present paper proposes to break SUSY using the multi-cosine-shaped axion potentials which arise if a long winding trajectory of a 'complex-structure axion' appears in the large-complex-structure limit of a Calabi-Yau orientifold. This has been studied in the context of 'Winding Inflation', but the potential for SUSY breaking has not been fully explored. We discuss the application to uplifting LVS vacua, point out the challenges which one faces in the KKLT context, and consider the possibility of violating the non-SUSY AdS conjecture in the type-IIA setting of DGKT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General N = (1, 0) supergravity-matter systems in six dimensions may be described using one of the two fully fledged superspace formulations for conformal supergravity: (i) SU(2) superspace; and (ii) conformal superspace. With motivation to develop rigid supersymmetric field theories in curved space, this paper is devoted to the study of the geometric symmetries of supergravity backgrounds. In particular, we introduce the notion of a conformal Killing spinor superfield ϵα, which proves to generate extended superconformal transformations. Among its cousins are the conformal Killing vector ξa and tensor ζa(n) superfields. The former parametrise conformal isometries of supergravity backgrounds, which in turn yield symmetries of every superconformal field theory. Meanwhile, the conformal Killing tensors of a given background are associated with higher symmetries of the hypermultiplet. By studying the higher symmetries of a non-conformal vector multiplet we introduce the concept of a Killing tensor superfield. We also analyse the problem of computing higher symmetries for the conformal d'Alembertian in curved space and demonstrate that, beyond the first-order case, these operators are defined only on a limited class of backgrounds, including all conformally flat ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study quantum corrections in four-dimensional theories with N = 1 supersymmetry in the context of Quantum Gravity Conjectures. According to the Emergent String Conjecture, infinite distance limits in quantum gravity either lead to decompactification of the theory or result in a weakly coupled string theory. We verify this conjecture in the framework of N = 1 supersymmetric F-theory compactifications to four dimensions including perturbative α′ as well as non-perturbative corrections. After proving uniqueness of the emergent critical string at the classical level, we show that quantum corrections obstruct precisely those limits in which the scale of the emergent critical string would lie parametrically below the Kaluza-Klein scale. Limits in which the tension of the asymptotically tensionless string sits at the Kaluza-Klein scale, by contrast, are not obstructed. In the second part of the paper we study the effect of quantum corrections for the Weak Gravity Conjecture away from the strict weak coupling limit. We propose that gauge threshold corrections and mass renormalisation effects modify the super-extremality bound in four dimensions. For the infinite distance limits in F-theory the classical super-extremality bound is generically satisfied by a sublattice of states in the tower of excitations of an emergent heterotic string. By matching the F-theory α′-corrections to gauge threshold corrections of the dual heterotic theory we predict how the masses of this tower must be renormalised in order for the Weak Gravity Conjecture to hold at the quantum level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study a class of symmetry reduced models of N = 1 super- gravity using self-dual variables. It is based on a particular Ansatz for the gravitino field as proposed by D'Eath et al. We show that the essential part of the constraint algebra in the classical theory closes. In particular, the (graded) Poisson bracket between the left and right supersymmetry constraint reproduces the Hamiltonian constraint. For the quantum theory, we apply techniques from the manifestly supersymmetric approach to loop quantum supergravity, which yields a graded analog of the holonomy-flux algebra and a natural state space. We implement the remaining constraints in the quantum theory. For a certain subclass of these models, we show explicitly that the (graded) commutator of the supersymmetry constraints exactly reproduces the classical Poisson relations. In particular, the trace of the commutator of left and right supersymmetry constraints reproduces the Hamilton constraint operator. Finally, we consider the dynamics of the theory and compare it to a quantization using standard variables and standard minisuperspace techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we extend our previous work to construct (0 , 2) Toda-like mirrors to A/2-twisted theories on more general spaces, as part of a program of understanding (0,2) mirror symmetry. Specifically, we propose (0 , 2) mirrors to GLSMs on toric del Pezzo surfaces and Hirzebruch surfaces with deformations of the tangent bundle. We check the results by comparing correlation functions, global symmetries, as well as geometric blowdowns with the corresponding (0 , 2) Toda-like mirrors. We also briefly discuss Grassmannian manifolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positivity bounds coming from consistency of UV scattering amplitudes are not always sufficient to prove the weak gravity conjecture for theories beyond Einstein-Maxwell. Additional ingredients about the UV may be necessary to exclude those regions of parameter space which are naïvely in conflict with the predictions of the weak gravity conjecture. In this paper we explore the consequences of imposing additional symmetries inherited from the UV theory on higher-derivative operators for Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton-axion theory. Using black hole thermodynamics, for a preserved SL(2, ℝ) symmetry we find that the weak gravity conjecture then does follow from positivity bounds. For a preserved O(d, d; ℝ) symmetry we find a simple condition on the two Wilson coefficients which ensures the positivity of corrections to the charge-to-mass ratio and that follows from the null energy condition alone. We find that imposing supersymmetry on top of either of these symmetries gives corrections which vanish identically, as expected for BPS states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple model for the explanation of the muon anomalous magnetic moment was proposed by the present authors within the context of the minimal supersymmetric standard model [1-2]: Higgs-anomaly mediation. In the setup, squarks, sleptons, and gauginos are massless at tree-level, but the Higgs doublets get large negative soft supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking masses squared m H u 2 ≃ m H d 2 < 0 at a certain energy scale, Minp. The sfermion masses are radiatively generated by anomaly mediation and Higgs-loop effects, and gaugino masses are solely determined by anomaly mediation. Consequently, the smuons and bino are light enough to explain the muon g − 2 anomaly while the third generation sfermions are heavy enough to explain the observed Higgs boson mass. The scenario avoids the SUSY flavor problem as well as various cosmological problems, and is consistent with the radiative electroweak symmetry breaking. In this paper, we show that, although the muon g − 2 explanation in originally proposed Higgs-anomaly mediation with Minp∼ 1016 GeV is slightly disfavored by the latest LHC data, the muon g − 2 can still be explained at 1σ level when Higgs mediation becomes important at the intermediate scale, Minp∼ 1012 GeV. The scenario predicts light SUSY particles that can be fully covered by the LHC and future collider experiments. We also provide a simple realization of m H u 2 ≃ m H d 2 < 0 at the intermediate scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study various forms of RG and apply these to the BFSS model of N coincident D0-branes. Firstly, as a warm-up, we perform standard Wilsonian RG, investigating the conditions under which supersymmetry is preserved along the flow. Next, we develop a local RG scheme such that the cutoff is spacetime dependent, which could have further applications to studying QFT in curved spacetime. Finally, we test the conjecture put forward in [1] that the method of quantum RG could be the mechanism responsible for the gauge/gravity duality by applying it to the BFSS model, which has a known gravitational dual. Although not entirely conclusive some questions are raised about the applicability of quantum RG as a description of the AdS/CFT correspondence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we incorporate the modular S4 flavor symmetry into the supersymmetric version of the minimal type-I seesaw model, in which only two right-handed neutrino singlets are introduced to account for tiny Majorana neutrino masses, and explore its implications for the lepton mass spectra, flavor mixing and CP violation. The basic idea is to assign two right-handed neutrino singlets into the unique two-dimensional irreducible representation of the modular S4 symmetry group. Moreover, we show that the matter-antimatter asymmetry in our Universe can be successfully explained via the resonant leptogenesis mechanism working at a relatively-low seesaw scale ΛSS≈ 107 GeV, with which the potential problem of the gravitino overproduction can be avoided. In this connection, we emphasize that the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry may lead to a stringent constraint on the parameter space and testable predictions for low-energy observables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In four spacetime dimensions, all N = 1 supergravity-matter systems can be formulated in the so-called U(1) superspace proposed by Howe in 1981. This paper is devoted to the study of those geometric structures which characterise a background U(1) superspace and are important in the context of supersymmetric field theory in curved space. We introduce (conformal) Killing tensor superfields ℓ α 1 ... α m α ⋅ 1 ... α ⋅ n , with m and n non-negative integers, m + n > 0, and elaborate on their significance in the following cases: (i) m = n = 1; (ii) m − 1 = n = 0; and (iii) m = n > 1. The (conformal) Killing vector superfields ℓ α α ⋅ generate the (conformal) isometries of curved superspace, which are symmetries of every (conformal) supersymmetric field theory. The (conformal) Killing spinor superfields ℓα generate extended (conformal) supersymmetry transformations. The (conformal) Killing tensor superfields with m = n > 1 prove to generate all higher symmetries of the (massless) massive Wess-Zumino operator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, we compute the correlation functions in 2D N = (1, 1) and N = (2, 2) superconformal field theories with T T ¯ deformation up to the first order of the deformation in terms of perturbation theory. With the help of superconformal Ward identity in N = (1, 1) and N = (2, 2) theories and careful regularization, the correlation functions in the deformed theory can be obtained up to the first order perturbation. This study is the extension from previous bosonic T T ¯ deformation to the supersymmetric one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quenched disorder is very important but notoriously hard. In 1979, Parisi and Sourlas proposed an interesting and powerful conjecture about the infrared fixed points with random field type of disorder: such fixed points should possess an unusual supersymmetry, by which they reduce in two less spatial dimensions to usual non-supersymmetric non- disordered fixed points. This conjecture however is known to fail in some simple cases, but there is no consensus on why this happens. In this paper we give new non-perturbative arguments for dimensional reduction. We recast the problem in the language of Conformal Field Theory (CFT). We then exhibit a map of operators and correlation functions from Parisi-Sourlas supersymmetric CFT in d dimensions to a (d − 2)-dimensional ordinary CFT. The reduced theory is local, i.e. it has a local conserved stress tensor operator. As required by reduction, we show a perfect match between superconformal blocks and the usual conformal blocks in two dimensions lower. This also leads to a new relation between conformal blocks across dimensions. This paper concerns the second half of the Parisi-Sourlas conjecture, while the first half (existence of a supersymmetric fixed point) will be examined in a companion work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study type-B conformal anomalies associated with 1 2 -BPS Coulomb-branch operators in 4D N = 2 superconformal field theories. When the vacuum preserves the conformal symmetry these anomalies coincide with the two-point function coefficients in the Coulomb-branch chiral ring. They are non-trivial functions of exactly-marginal couplings that can be determined from the S4 partition function. In this paper, we examine the fate of these anomalies in vacua of the Higgs-branch moduli space, where conformal symmetry is spontaneously broken. We argue non-perturbatively that these anomalies are covariantly constant on conformal manifolds. In some cases, this can be used to show that they match in the broken and unbroken phases. Thus, we uncover a new class of data on the Higgs branch of 4D N = 2 conformal field theories that are exactly computable. An interesting application of this matching occurs in N = 2 circular quivers that deconstruct the 6D (2,0) theory on a torus. In that context, we argue that 4D supersymmetric localisation can be used to calculate non-trivial data involving 1 2 -BPS operators of the 6D theory as exact functions of the complex structure of the torus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MadGraph5_aMC@NLO framework aims to automate all types of leading- and next-to-leading-order-accurate simulations for any user-defined model that stems from a renormalisable Lagrangian. In this paper, we present all of the key ingredients of such models in the context of supersymmetric theories. In order to do so, we extend the FeynRules package by giving it the possibility of dealing with different renormalisation options that are relevant to supersymmetric models. We also show how to deal with the problem posed by the presence of narrow resonances, thus generalising the so-called on-shell subtraction approaches. We extensively compare our total rate results with those of both Prospino2 and Resummino, and present illustrative applications relevant to the 13 TeV LHC, both at the total-rate and differential levels. The computer programmes that we have used to obtain the predictions presented here are all publicly available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identity of Dark Matter (DM) is one of the most active topics in particle physics today. Supersymmetry (SUSY) is an extension of the standard model (SM) that could describe the particle nature of DM in the form of the lightest neutralino in R-parity conserving models. We focus on SUSY models that solve the hierarchy problem with small fine tuning, and where the lightest SUSY particles χ ˜ 1 0 χ ˜ 1 ± χ ˜ 2 0 are a triplet of higgsino-like states, such that the mass difference Δ m χ ˜ 2 0 χ ˜ 1 0 is 0.5–50 GeV. We perform a feasibility study to assess the long-term discovery potential for these compressed SUSY models with higgsino-like states, using vector boson fusion (VBF) processes in the context of proton-proton collisions at s = 13 TeV, at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Assuming an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb−1, we find that stringent VBF requirements, combined with large missing momentum and one or two low-pT leptons, is effective at reducing the major SM backgrounds, leading to a 5σ (3σ) discovery reach for m χ ˜ 2 0 < 180 (260) GeV, and a projected 95% confidence level exclusion region that covers m χ ˜ 2 0 up to 385 GeV, parameter space that is currently unconstrained by other experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was recently observed that Kerr-AdS metrics with negative mass can describe smooth spacetimes that have a region within which naked closed time-like curves can arise, bounded by a velocity of light surface. Such spacetimes are sometimes known as time machines. In this paper we study the BPS limit of these metrics, and find that the mass and angular momenta become discretised. The completeness of the spacetime also requires that the asymptotic time coordinate be periodic, with precisely the same period as that which arises naturally for the global AdS, viewed as a hyperboliod in one extra dimension, in which the time machine spacetime is immersed. For the case of equal angular momenta in odd dimensions, we construct the Killing spinors explicitly, and show they are consistent with the global structure. Thus in examples where the solutions can be embedded in gauged supergravity, they will be supersymmetric. We also compare the global structure of the BPS AdS3 time machine with the BTZ black hole, and show that the global structure allows two different supersymmetric limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study the Bremsstrahlung functions for the 1/6 BPS and the 1/2 BPS Wilson lines in ABJM theory. First we use a superconformal defect approach to prove a conjectured relation between the Bremsstrahlung functions associated to the geometric (Bφ1/6) and R-symmetry (Bθ1/6) deformations of the 1/6 BPS Wilson line. This result, non-trivially following from a defect supersymmetric Ward identity, provides an exact expression for Bθ1/6 based on a known result for Bφ1/6. Subsequently, we explore the consequences of this relation for the 1/2 BPS Wilson line and, using the localization result for the multiply wound Wilson loop, we provide an exact closed form for the corresponding Bremsstrahlung function. Interestingly, for the comparison with integrability, this expression appears particularly natural in terms of the conjectured interpolating function h(λ). During the derivation of these results we analyze the protected defect supermultiplets associated to the broken symmetries, including their two- and three-point correlators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]