The Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) contains a singlet-like pseudoscalar Higgs boson in addition to the doublet-like pseudoscalar of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. This new pseudoscalar can have a very low mass without violating the LEP exclusion constraints and it can potentially provide a hallmark signature of non-minimal supersymmetry at the LHC. In this analysis we revisit the light pseudoscalar in the NMSSM with partial universality at some high unification scale. We delineate the regions of the model's parameter space that are consistent with the up-to-date theoretical and experimental constraints, from both Higgs boson searches and elsewhere (most notably $b$-physics), and examine to what extent they can be probed by the LHC. To this end we review the most important production channels of such a Higgs state and assess the scope of its observation at the forthcoming Run-2 of the LHC. We conclude that the $b\bar{b}$-associated production of the pseudoscalar, which has been emphasised in previous studies, does not carry much promise anymore, given the measured mass of the Higgs boson at the LHC. However, the decays of one of the heavier scalar Higgsbosons of the NMSSM can potentially lead to the discovery of its light pseudoscalar. Especially promising are the decays of one or both of the two lightest scalar states into a pseudoscalar pair and of the heaviest scalar into a pseudoscalar and a $Z$ boson. Since the latter channel has not been explored in detail in the literature so far, we provide details of some benchmark points which can be probed for establishing its signature.Comment: 33 pages, 13 figures. Typos corrected, figures and some text improved, references added. Version to appear in JHE

Extremely weakly interacting particles like the gravitino may be stable enough on cosmological time scales to constitute a good dark matter candidate even in the presence of R-parity violation. We consider the possibility that the recently identified 3.5 keV x-ray line can be generated in light gravitino decays to neutrinos and photons. We find that this is indeed possible in loop processes induced by trilinear lepton-number-violating couplings. We show that in order to avoid overproduction of gravitinos, the reheating temperature has to be at most around 100 GeV to 1 TeV. Finally we briefly discuss associated LHC phenomenology due to a relatively light gluino and multijet/multilepton events from R-parity violating decays of neutralinos.

We study photonic, neutrino and charged particle signatures from slow decays of gravitino dark matter in supersymmetric theories where R-parity is explicitly broken by trilinear operators. Photons and (anti-)fermions from loop and tree-level processes give rise to spectra with distinct features, which, if observed, can give crucial input on the possible mass of the gravitino and the magnitude and flavour structure of R-violating operators. Within this framework, we make detailed comparisons of the theoretical predictions to the recent experimental data from PAMELA, ATIC and Fermi LAT.1 This power of m 7 G , which plays an important role in our considerations, comes about as follows: there is a factor of m 5 G from phase space, such as in muon decays, in addition, there is a factor of mG in the matrix element, since the gravitational coupling is proportional to the four-momentum.

We study gravitino dark matter and slow gravitino decays within the framework of R-violating supersymmetry, with particular emphasis on the flavour dependence of the branching ratios and the allowed R-violating couplings. The dominant decay modes and final state products turn out to be very sensitive to the R-violating hierarchies. Mixing effects can be crucial in correctly deriving the relative magnitude of the various contributions, particularly for heavy flavours with phase space suppression. The study of the strength of different decay rates for the gravitino is also correlated to collider signatures expected from decays of the Next-to-Lightest Supersymmetric Particle (NLSP) and to single superparticle production.

Abstract:We study signatures of R-parity violation in the production of supersymmetric particles at the LHC, and the subsequent decay of the lightest neutralino being the end product of a supersymmetric cascade decay. In doing so, we pay particular attention to the possible flavour structure of the operators, and how one may discriminate between different possibilities. A neutralino LSP would couple to all quarks and leptons and a comparative study of its decays provides an optimal channel for the simultaneous study of all 45 R-violating operators. By studying the expected signals from all these operators, we demonstrate the ability to understand whether more than one coupling dominates, and to map the experimental signatures to operator hierarchies that can then be compared against theoretical models of flavour. Detailed comparisons with backgrounds, including those from MSSM cascade decays are made, using the PYTHIA event simulator.