Fruits of the Universe – SUSY, where are you? The concept of supersymmetry and the status of experimental searches

by David Straub (TUM)

Thursday 13 Mar 2014, 12:30 → 13:00 Europe/Berlin

Foyer, 1st floor (Excellence Cluster Universe)

SUSY, where are you? The concept of supersymmetry and the status of experimental searches Supersymmetry can be seen as the only way to non-trivially extend the symmetries of space-time (without increasing the number of dimensions). But besides being interesting conceptually, supersymmetry also has interesting phenomenological consequences. Supersymmetrizing the Standard Model, one finds that gauge couplings extrapolated to very short distances unify and a candidate for the dark matter of the universe emerges. Most importantly, supersymmetry is the only known way to reconcile an elementary Higgs boson - that we seem to have just discovered - with the presence of new physics at high energy scales, that is required for many reasons, without excessive fine-tuning in fundamental parameters. So far however, no signs of supersymmetric partners of the known particles have shown up at the 8 TeV LHC, and rumours about the demise of supersymmetry are spreading. David will give a critical review of the motivations for and the state of low-energy supersymmetry after 3 years of LHC. The audience is cordially invited to discuss and comment. During this 30-minutes lunch event, we will serve drinks and fingerfood. Venue: Cluster building, Foyer 1st floor, Boltzmannstr. 2, Garching