Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 307 2 a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
A chiral superfield obeysExamples in the Minimal supersymmetric Standard Model include the quark, lepton and Higgs chiral superfields. Such a multiplet contains a complex scalar , a two-component Weyl spinor , and a complex auxiliary field ; only the scalar and fermion propagate on shell.
The chiral coordinate is annihilated in the required combination by , so the solution has the simple formTaylor-expand each component about . Nilpotence truncates the series, and the Grassmann identitygives the chiral-superfield component expansionTherefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 307 3 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
At one loop, plot each inverse squared coupling against . The three Standard Model lines have slopes that do not pass through one common point. Above the superpartner threshold, additional scalar and fermion vacuum-polarization diagrams change the slopes: for example, an gauge-boson two-point function receives a loop from a left-handed Standard Model fermion doublet and an additional loop from its scalar superpartner, while the gauge multiplet adds a gaugino loop alongside the gauge-boson and ghost loops. With the Minimal supersymmetric Standard Model field content, the three resulting straight lines meet to good accuracy. This is supersymmetric gauge coupling unification.
Let . Equality of and at the unification scale givessoSimilarly,whileEliminating yieldswithFor the GUT-normalized MSSM one-loop coefficients proportional to , this is .
Current coupling measurements approximately satisfy this MSSM relation and point to of order GeV, much more accurately than nonsupersymmetric one-loop running. Exact equality is not expected because two-loop evolution and threshold corrections from split superpartner and GUT-scale masses shift the lines; the absence so far of directly observed superpartners also prevents the threshold spectrum from being fixed experimentally.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 307 2 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The hierarchy problem is visible in the one-loop top-quark contribution to the Higgs boson mass parameter,In a supersymmetric theory the corresponding stop loop has the opposite quadratic term. If supersymmetry is softly broken, the remaining correction is roughlyThe two relevant one-loop Feynman diagrams are a Higgs two-point function with a closed top-quark loop and the analogous stop loop. Requiring the residual correction not to exceed the electroweak scale by many orders of magnitude gives the naturalness expectation , and broadly other sparticle masses, at a few TeV or below. This is an order-of-magnitude argument rather than a mass bound.
R-parity iswhere is baryon number, is lepton number and is spin angular momentum. Standard Model particles have , while their superpartners have . The renormalizable R-parity-violating superpotential of the Minimal supersymmetric Standard Model iswith and .
Combining with produces proton decay through exchange of a virtual right-handed down-type squark. The tree diagram has and entering the baryon-number-violating vertex, an internal line, and the lepton-number-violating vertex emitting and a light quark. Hadronization givesThe invisible particle is an antineutrino of any family , and electric-charge conservation requires a positively charged pion. The antisymmetry of requires or .
Integrating out a squark of mass gives a dimension-six interaction with coefficient . Ignoring order-one hadronic and phase-space factors,For and , the factor before the couplings is about --. A lifetime above years is about , so andat order-of-magnitude accuracy. Hadronic matrix elements and flavour choices alter the numerical coefficient, not the conclusion that simultaneous baryon- and lepton-number violation is extraordinarily constrained.
The matter-parity factor is odd for every quark or lepton superfield and even for either Higgs superfield. Each term in contains an odd number of matter superfields, so R-parity forbids all four types of term. Standard MSSM Yukawa interactions contain two matter superfields and remain allowed.
Finally, the requested four-point interaction contains a squark, an antisquark, a boson and a gluon. It comes from the squark gauge-covariant kinetic termThe cross term isbecause the colour and weak generators commute. With all fields incoming, its Feynman rule iswith the conventional conversion when is replaced by .