Constraints on a Very Light Sbottom

Understand

We investigate the phenomenological viability of a very light bottom squark, with a mass less than half of the Z boson mass.

• The decays of the Z and Higgs bosons to light sbottom pairs are, in a fairly model independent manner, strongly constrained by the precision electroweak data and Higgs signal strength measurements, respectively.
• These constraints are complementary to direct collider searches, which depend in detail on assumptions regarding the superpartner spectrum and decays of the sbottom.
• In particular, if the lightest sbottom has a mass below about 15 GeV, compatibility with these measurements is possible only in a special region of parameter space in which the couplings of the lightest sbottom to the Z and Higgs are suppressed.