Lightest supersymmetric particle

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In particle physics, the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) is the generic name given to the lightest of the additional hypothetical particles found in supersymmetric models. In models with R-parity conservation, the LSP is stable; in other words, it cannot decay into any Standard Model particle, since all SM particles have the opposite R-parity. There is extensive observational evidence for an additional component of the matter density in the universe, which goes under the name dark matter. The LSP of supersymmetric models is a dark matter candidate and is a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP). [1]

Contents

Constraints on LSP from cosmology

The LSP is unlikely to be a charged wino, charged higgsino, slepton, sneutrino, gluino, squark, or gravitino but is most likely a mixture of neutral higgsinos, the bino and the neutral winos, [2] i.e. a neutralino. In particular, if the LSP were charged (and is abundant in our galaxy) such particles would have been captured by the Earth's magnetic field and form heavy hydrogen-like atoms. [3] Searches for anomalous hydrogen in natural water [4] however have been without any evidence for such particles and thus put severe constraints on the existence of a charged LSP.

As a dark matter candidate

Dark matter particles must be electrically neutral; otherwise they would scatter light and thus not be "dark". They must also almost certainly be non-colored. [5] With these constraints, the LSP could be the lightest neutralino, the gravitino, or the lightest sneutrino.

In extra-dimensional theories, there are analogous particles called LKPs or Lightest Kaluza–Klein Particle. These are the stable particles of extra-dimensional theories. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

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0
1
,
0
2
,
0
3
and
0
4
although sometimes is also used when is used to refer to charginos.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaugino</span>

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±
1
and
±
2
, although sometimes and are also used to refer to charginos, when is used to refer to neutralinos. The heavier chargino can decay through the neutral Z boson to the lighter chargino. Both can decay through a charged W boson to a neutralino:

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, is the superpartner of the Higgs field. A higgsino is a Dirac fermionic field with spin 12 and it refers to a weak isodoublet with hypercharge half under the Standard Model gauge symmetries. After electroweak symmetry breaking higgsino fields linearly mix with U(1) and SU(2) gauginos leading to four neutralinos and two charginos that refer to physical particles. While the two charginos are charged Dirac fermions, the neutralinos are electrically neutral Majorana fermions. In an R-parity-conserving version of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, the lightest neutralino typically becomes the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). The LSP is a particle physics candidate for the dark matter of the universe since it cannot decay to particles with lighter mass. A neutralino LSP, depending on its composition can be bino, wino or higgsino dominated in nature and can have different zones of mass values in order to satisfy the estimated dark matter relic density. Commonly, a higgsino dominated LSP is often referred as a higgsino, in spite of the fact that a higgsino is not a physical state in the true sense.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordon L. Kane</span>

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References

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