Gravitino decays and the cosmological lithium problem in light of the LHC Higgs and supersymmetry searches

TY - JOUR

T1 - Gravitino decays and the cosmological lithium problem in light of the LHC Higgs and supersymmetry searches

AU - Cyburt, Richard H.

AU - Ellis, John

AU - Fields, Brian D.

AU - Luo, Feng

AU - Olive, Keith A.

AU - Spanos, Vassilis C.

PY - 2013/5

Y1 - 2013/5

N2 - We studied previously the impact on light-element abundances of gravitinos decaying during or after Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). We found regions of the gravitino mass m(3/2) and abundance zeta(3/2) plane where its decays could reconcile the calculated abundance of Li-7 with observation without perturbing the other light-element abundances unacceptably. Here we revisit this issue in light of LHC measurements of the Higgs mass and constraints on supersymmetric model parameters, as well as updates in the astrophysical measurements of light-element abundances. In addition to the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model with universal soft supersymmetry-breaking masses at the GUT scale (the CMSSM) studied previously, we also study models with universality imposed below the GUT scale and models with non-universal Higgs masses (NUHM1). We calculate the total likelihood function for the light-element abundances, taking into account the observational uncertainties. We find that gravitino decays provide a robust solution to the cosmological Li-7 problem along strips in the (m(3/2), zeta(3/2)) Plane along which the abundances of deuterium, He-4 and Li-7 may be fit with chi(2)(min) less than or similar to 3, compared with chi(2) similar to 34 if the effects of gravitino decays are unimportant. The minimum of the likelihood function is reduced to chi(2) <2 when the uncertainty on D/H is relaxed and

AB - We studied previously the impact on light-element abundances of gravitinos decaying during or after Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). We found regions of the gravitino mass m(3/2) and abundance zeta(3/2) plane where its decays could reconcile the calculated abundance of Li-7 with observation without perturbing the other light-element abundances unacceptably. Here we revisit this issue in light of LHC measurements of the Higgs mass and constraints on supersymmetric model parameters, as well as updates in the astrophysical measurements of light-element abundances. In addition to the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model with universal soft supersymmetry-breaking masses at the GUT scale (the CMSSM) studied previously, we also study models with universality imposed below the GUT scale and models with non-universal Higgs masses (NUHM1). We calculate the total likelihood function for the light-element abundances, taking into account the observational uncertainties. We find that gravitino decays provide a robust solution to the cosmological Li-7 problem along strips in the (m(3/2), zeta(3/2)) Plane along which the abundances of deuterium, He-4 and Li-7 may be fit with chi(2)(min) less than or similar to 3, compared with chi(2) similar to 34 if the effects of gravitino decays are unimportant. The minimum of the likelihood function is reduced to chi(2) <2 when the uncertainty on D/H is relaxed and

KW - big bang nucleosynthesis

KW - supersymmetry and cosmology

KW - BIG-BANG NUCLEOSYNTHESIS

KW - HYDROGEN ABUNDANCE RATIO

KW - CLUSTER NGC 6397

KW - PRIMORDIAL NUCLEOSYNTHESIS

KW - DEUTERIUM ABUNDANCE

KW - POOR

KW - STARS

KW - MSSM

KW - QSO

KW - BERYLLIUM

U2 - 10.1088/1475-7516/2013/05/014

DO - 10.1088/1475-7516/2013/05/014

M3 - Article

SN - 1475-7516

JO - Journal Of Cosmology And Astroparticle Physics

JF - Journal Of Cosmology And Astroparticle Physics

IS - 5

M1 - 014

ER -