Weak interactions of supersymmetric staus at high energies

Abstract

Neutrino telescopes may have the potential to detect the quasi-stable staus predicted by some supersymmetric models. Detection depends on stau electromagnetic energy loss and weak interactions. We present results for the weak interactions contribution to the energy loss of high energy staus as they pass through rock. We show that the neutral current weak interaction contribution is much smaller than photonuclear energy loss, however, the charged current contribution may become dominant process above an energy of ∼ 10 9 GeV. As a consequence, the stau range may be reduced above ∼ 10 9 GeV as compared to the range neglecting weak interactions. We contrast this with the case of tau range, which is barely changed with the inclusion of charged current interactions.

On the fraction of dark matter in charged massive particles (CHAMPs)

“…The existence of CHAMPs is well-motivated in the model of super Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (super-WIMP) dark matter [3]. In supersymmetric theories, some popular examples of CHAMPs include a slepton, such as the supersymmetric staus (e.g., [1,4]).…”

Long-lived staus from cosmic rays

“…Here we will focus on non-colored particles, which present some remarkable differences with the gluinos. In particular, as one of these particles propagates in matter it loses energy at a much smaller rate than an R-hadron [17,18]. This fact makes it easier to confuse it with a muon, but it also lets the particle reach IceCube form larger zenith angles.…”

“…will use the approximation for the range of a stau provided in [17] and will neglect losses through electroweak interactions [18], as they are not important for the stau energies that we obtain.…”

Cosmogenic neutrinos and quasistable supersymmetric particle production

“…The effect of including maximal charged-current interactions of the staus can be seen by the suppression in the ratio, shown with the dashed lines. We note that the suppression in the ratio begins to take effect between 10 6 and 10 7 GeV, where the stau range begins to be affected by stau charged-current interactions [11]. In Fig.…”