Chiral Flavor Violation from Extended Gauge Mediation

TL;DR

This paper investigates flavor violation in extended gauge mediation models with large A-terms, introducing a new computational tool and revealing a protective flavor texture called chiral flavor violation that relaxes experimental constraints.

Contribution

The paper provides the first detailed analysis of flavor violation in these models and introduces FormFlavor, a new tool for precision flavor observable calculations.

Findings

Models are protected by chiral flavor violation texture

Flavor constraints are milder than expected

Potential for near-future experimental tests

Abstract

Models of extended gauge mediation, in which large A-terms arise through direct messenger-MSSM superpotential couplings, are well-motivated by the discovery of the 125 GeV Higgs. However, since these models are not necessarily MFV, the flavor constraints could be stringent. In this paper, we perform the first detailed and quantitative study of the flavor violation in these models. To facilitate our study, we introduce a new tool called FormFlavor for computing precision flavor observables in the general MSSM. We validate FormFlavor and our qualitative understanding of the flavor violation in these models by comparing against analytical expressions. Despite being non-MFV, we show that these models are protected against the strongest constraints by a special flavor texture, which we dub chiral flavor violation ($\chi$FV). This results in only mild bounds from current experiments, and exciting prospects for experiments in the near future.