Against Tachyophobia

Abstract

We examine the possible extension of the parameter space of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM), as expressed via the renormalization-group equations in terms of universal soft supersymmetry-breaking terms at the unification scale, to include tachyonic input scalar masses. Many models with negative masses-squared for scalars at the unification scale may be viable because the small sizes of the masses-squared allow them to change signs during the renormalization-group evolution to the electroweak scale. However, in many cases, there is, in addition to the electroweak vacuum, a much deeper high-scale vacuum located along some F- and D-flat direction in the effective potential for the MSSM. We perform a numerical search for such vacua in both the CMSSM and the NUHM. We discuss the circumstances under which the existence of such a deep charge- and color-breaking vacuum is consistent with standard cosmology. A crucial role is played by the inflation--induced scalar masses, whereas thermal effects are often irrelevant.

24 pages, 4 figures

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• Constraining the Natural MSSM through tunneling to color-breaking vacua at zero and non-zero temperature
• The pMSSM10 after LHC Run 1
• Progress in four-dimensional lattice supersymmetry
• The heterotic string yields natural supersymmetry
• Sneutrino NLSP Scenarios in the NUHM with Gravitino Dark Matter
• What if Supersymmetry Breaking Unifies beyond the GUT Scale?
• Metastability bounds on flavour-violating trilinear soft terms in the MSSM
• Heart of Darkness: The Significance of the Zeptobarn Scale for Neutralino Direct Detection
• Phenomenology and Cosmology of No-Scale Attractor Models of Inflation
• Likelihood Analysis of Supersymmetric SU(5) GUTs
• Neutrino Fluxes from NUHM LSP Annihilations in the Sun
• One-Loop Anomaly Mediated Scalar Masses and (g-2)_mu in Pure Gravity Mediation
• The ATLAS Di-boson Excess Could Be an R-parity Violating Di-smuon Excess
• Flipped $g_{\mu }-2$
• Travels on the squark-gluino mass plane
• A Sneutrino NLSP in the $\nu$CMSSM
• Vacuum Stability with Tachyonic Boundary Higgs Masses in No-Scale Supersymmetry or Gaugino Mediation
• Phenomenological constraints on light mixed sneutrino dark matter scenarios
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• Gravitino Dark Matter in Gravity Mediation
• Will the LHC Look into the Fate of the Universe?
• A Minimal Supersymmetric SU(5) Missing-Partner Model
• Constraints from Unrealistic Vacua in Supersymmetric Standard Model with Neutrino Mass Operators
• A proper scalar product for tachyon representations in configuration space