General Gauge Mediation at the Weak Scale

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive characterization of General Gauge Mediation at the weak scale, analyzing IR constraints and their implications for superpartner masses and electroweak symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It offers a complete solution to IR constraints in GGM at the weak scale, combining numerical and analytical methods to map the parameter space.

Findings

Left-handed squarks can be arbitrarily light.

Strong lower bounds on right-handed squarks.

Light electroweak superpartners are common, especially at lower messenger scales.

Abstract

We completely characterize General Gauge Mediation (GGM) at the weak scale by solving all IR constraints over the full parameter space. This is made possible through a combination of numerical and analytical methods, based on a set of algebraic relations among the IR soft masses derived from the GGM boundary conditions in the UV. We show how tensions between just a few constraints determine the boundaries of the parameter space: electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB), the Higgs mass, slepton tachyons, and left-handed stop/sbottom tachyons. While these constraints allow the left-handed squarks to be arbitrarily light, they place strong lower bounds on all of the right-handed squarks. Meanwhile, light EW superpartners are generic throughout much of the parameter space. This is especially the case at lower messenger scales, where a positive threshold correction to $m_h$ coming from light Higgsinos and winos is essential in order to satisfy the Higgs mass constraint.