Heavy Thresholds, Slepton Masses and the $\mu$ Term in Anomaly Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking

TL;DR

This paper examines how heavy mass thresholds influence anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking, showing they can modify soft terms at higher orders and help generate viable slepton masses and mu-terms.

Contribution

It demonstrates that heavy thresholds, despite decoupling at lowest order, impact anomaly-mediated soft terms at higher orders, enabling viable supersymmetric models.

Findings

Heavy thresholds affect soft terms at higher loop orders.

Non-decoupling contributions can generate positive slepton masses.

Heavy thresholds can produce acceptable mu- and B-terms.

Abstract

The effects of heavy mass thresholds on anomaly-mediated soft supersymmetry breaking terms are discussed. While heavy thresholds completely decouple to lowest order in the supersymmetry breaking, it is argued that they do affect the breaking terms at higher orders. The relevant contributions typically occur at lower order in the loop expansion compared to purely anomaly mediated contributions. The non decoupling contributions may be used to render models in which the only source of supersymmetry breaking is anomaly mediation viable, by generating positive contributions to the sleptons' masses squared. They can also be used to generate acceptable mu- and B-terms.