Soft Supersymmetry Breaking and the Supersymmetric Standard Model

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development and experimental verification of the Supersymmetric Standard Model, highlighting its predictions like superparticles at the electroweak scale and gauge coupling unification.

Contribution

It recalls the historical construction of the model and summarizes its key predictions and experimental confirmations since 1981.

Findings

Gauge coupling unification confirmed by LEP and SLC

Predicted superparticles at the electroweak scale

Stable lightest superparticle with ~100 GeV mass

Abstract

We recall how the idea of Softly Broken Supersymmetry led to the construction of the Supersymmetric Standard Model in 1981. Its first prediction, the supersymmetric unification of gauge couplings, was conclusively verified by the LEP and SLC experiments 10 years later. Its other predictions include: the existence of superparticles at the electroweak scale; a stable lightest superparticle (LSP) with a mass of $\sim 100$ GeV, anticipated to be a neutral electroweak gaugino; the universality of scalar and gaugino masses at the unification scale. The original motivation for the model, solving the hierarchy problem, indicates that the superparticles should be discovered at the LHC or the TeVatron.