---
title: "Supersymmetry"
chunk: 5/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersymmetry"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:40:45.384774+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Searches and constraints for supersymmetry ===
SUSY extensions of the Standard Model are constrained by a variety of experiments, including measurements of low-energy observables – for example, the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon at Fermilab; the WMAP dark matter density measurement and direct detection experiments – for example, XENON-100 and LUX; and by particle collider experiments, including B-physics, Higgs phenomenology and direct searches for superpartners (sparticles), at the Large Electron–Positron Collider, Tevatron and the LHC. In fact, CERN publicly states that if a supersymmetric model of the Standard Model "is correct, supersymmetric particles should appear in collisions at the LHC".
Historically, the tightest limits were from direct production at colliders. The first mass limits for squarks and gluinos were made at CERN by the UA1 experiment and the UA2 experiment at the Super Proton Synchrotron. LEP later set very strong limits, which in 2006 were extended by the D0 experiment at the Tevatron. From 2003 to 2015, WMAP's and Planck's dark matter density measurements have strongly constrained supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model, which, if they explain dark matter, have to be tuned to invoke a particular mechanism to sufficiently reduce the neutralino density.
Prior to the beginning of the LHC, in 2009, fits of available data to CMSSM and NUHM1 indicated that squarks and gluinos were most likely to have masses in the 500 to 800 GeV range, though values as high as 2.5 TeV were allowed with low probabilities. Neutralinos and sleptons were expected to be quite light, with the lightest neutralino and the lightest stau most likely to be found between 100 and 150 GeV.
The first runs of the LHC surpassed existing experimental limits from the Large Electron–Positron Collider and Tevatron and partially excluded the aforementioned expected ranges. In 2011–12, the LHC discovered a Higgs boson with a mass of about 125 GeV, and with couplings to fermions and bosons which are consistent with the Standard Model. The MSSM predicts that the mass of the lightest Higgs boson should not be much higher than the mass of the Z boson, and, in the absence of fine tuning (with the supersymmetry breaking scale on the order of 1 TeV), should not exceed 135 GeV. The LHC found no previously unknown particles other than the Higgs boson which was already suspected to exist as part of the Standard Model, and therefore no evidence for any supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model.
Indirect methods include the search for a permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) in the known Standard Model particles, which can arise when the Standard Model particle interacts with the supersymmetric particles. The current best constraint on the electron electric dipole moment put it to be smaller than 10−28 e·cm, equivalent to a sensitivity to new physics at the TeV scale and matching that of the current best particle colliders. A permanent EDM in any fundamental particle points towards time-reversal violating physics, and therefore also CP-symmetry violation via the CPT theorem. Such EDM experiments are also much more scalable than conventional particle accelerators and offer a practical alternative to detecting physics beyond the Standard Model as accelerator experiments become increasingly costly and complicated to maintain. The current best limit for the electron's EDM has already reached a sensitivity to rule out so called 'naive' versions of supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model.
Research in the late 2010s and early 2020s from experimental data on the cosmological constant, LIGO noise, and pulsar timing, suggests it's very unlikely that there are any new particles with masses much higher than those which can be found in the Standard Model or the LHC. However, this research has also indicated that quantum gravity or perturbative quantum field theory will become strongly coupled before 1 PeV, leading to other new physics in the TeVs.

=== Current status ===
The negative findings in the experiments disappointed many physicists, who believed that supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model (and other theories relying upon it) were by far the most promising theories for "new" physics beyond the Standard Model, and had hoped for signs of unexpected results from the experiments. In particular, the LHC result seems problematic for the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, as the value of 125 GeV is relatively large for the model and can only be achieved with large radiative loop corrections from top squarks, which many theorists consider to be "unnatural" (see naturalness and fine tuning).
In response to the so-called "naturalness crisis" in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, some researchers have abandoned naturalness and the original motivation to solve the hierarchy problem naturally with supersymmetry, while other researchers have moved on to other supersymmetric models such as split supersymmetry. Still others have moved to string theory as a result of the naturalness crisis. Former enthusiastic supporter Mikhail Shifman went as far as urging the theoretical community to search for new ideas and accept that supersymmetry was a failed theory in particle physics. However, some researchers suggested that this "naturalness" crisis was premature because various calculations were too optimistic about the limits of masses which would allow a supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model as a solution.

== General supersymmetry ==
Supersymmetry appears in many related contexts of theoretical physics. It is possible to have multiple supersymmetries and also have supersymmetric extra dimensions.