Supersymmetry Quotes
A curated collection of the best quotes about Supersymmetry.
Top Quotes
“Wikipedia: Supersymmetry”
“... the discovery of supersymmetry ... would be the first extension of our notions of spacetime since Einstein.”
“The observed Higgs mass is compatible with supersymmetry only if the superpartners are quite heavy (tens of TeV) or under special circumstances.”
“Steven Weinberg, (1995), The Quantum Theory of Fields, vol. III chapter: Preface, page: xvi, publisher: Cambridge University Press”
“In the absence of a canonical model for why and how supersymmetry breaking occurs, the predicted consequences of supersymmetry are not sharply defined.”
“Edward Witten as quoted by Hirosi Ooguri in (2015), "Interview with Edward Witten", Notices of the AMS 62 no: 5, pages: 491–506 (p. 483)”
“Without SUSY, there is nothing like a chiral symmetry to protect scalar masses from heavy mass scales. But with SUSY, the chiral symmetry in the fermionic sector protects the scalars too.”
“There is an infinite number of Lie groups that can be used to combine particles of the same spin in ordinary symmetry multiplets, but there are only eight kinds of supersymmetry in four spacetime dimensions, of which only one, the simplest, could be directly relevant to observed particles.”
“Frank Wilczek, (2000), "Review of The Quantum Theory of Fields, Vol. 3: Supersymmetry by Steven Weinberg", Physics Today 53 no: 5, pages: 55–56, DOI:
#Supersymmetry
“Shortly after the development of four-dimensional globally supersymmetric field theories, Zumino (1975) pointed out that supersymmetry in these theories would, if unbroken, imply a vanishing vacuum energy.”
“... I knew quantum field theory well enough to know that saying that the potential energy for the scalar field is zero is not a meaningful statement quantum mechanically. If it were, we would not have a gauge hierarchy problem in particle physics. ... with supersymmetry the mass renormalization (and even the full effective potential) of a scalar can be zero.”
“Julius Wess and Jonathan Bagger: (1992), Supersymmetry and Supergravity: Revised and Expanded Edition, ISBN: 0-691-02530-4, series: Princeton Series in Physics (p. 3)”
“Supersymmetry is an updating of special relativity to include fermionic as well as bosonic symmetries of spacetime. In developing relativity, Einstein assumed that the spacetime coordinates were bosonic; fermions had not yet been discovered! In supersymmetry the structure of spacetime is enriched by the presence of fermionic as well as bosonic coordinates.”
“The mathematical consistency of string theory depends crucially on supersymmetry, and it is very hard to find consistent solutions (quantum vacua) that do not preserve at least a portion of this supersymmetry. This prediction of string theory differs from the other two (general relativity and gauge theories) in that it really is a prediction. It is a generic feature of string theory that has not yet been discovered experimentally.”
“Supersymmetry is a subject of considerable interest among physicists and mathematicians. Not only is it fascinating in its own right, but there is a growing belief that it may play a fundamental role in particle physicis. This belief is based on an important result of Haag, Sohnius, and Lopuszanski, who proved that the supersymmetry algebra is the only graded Lie algebra of symmetries of the S-matrix consistent with relativistic quantum field theory.”
“Of the proposed extensions to the Standard Model, supersymmetry (SUSY) has remained among the most popular for decades. It provides exactly the needed compensation to stabilize the Higgs mass, while additionally providing an ideal candidate for dark matter with a stable weakly interacting lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP).”
“SUSY is a unique new symmetry that relates bosons to fermions, in a sense explaining why fermions exist. Relating bosons to fermions also makes it possible to explain the smallness of the Higgs mass, since we do know why the smallness of fermion masses can be natural. So that is at least the germ of how SUSY solves the fine-tuning problem.”
“It would not be an exaggeration to say that today supersymmetry dominates theoretical high energy physics. Many believe it will play the same revolutionary role in the physics of the 21st as special and general relativity did in the physics of the 20th century. This belief is based on aesthetical appeal, on indirect evidence, and the fact that no theoretical alternative is in sight.”
“Arkani-Hamed and Dimopoulos ... have even shown how it is possible to keep the good features of supersymmetry, such as a more accurate convergence of the SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1) couplings to a single value, and the presence of candidates for dark matter WIMPs. The idea of this “split supersymmetry” is that, although supersymmetry is broken at some very high energy, the gauginos and higgsinos are kept light by a chiral symmetry. [An additional discrete symmetry is needed to prevent lepton-number violation in higgsino-lepton mixing, and to keep the lightest supersymmetric particle stable.]”
“Natural SUSY expects gluinos and squarks to be light. This motivated ATLAS and CMS to carry out extensive SUSY searches in various final states using full Run-2 data.”