2010/04/23 by Nathaniel Craig, Craig, Nathaniel · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1004.4218
30 pages, 1 figure, references added
openalex publication_date 2010/04/23 · arxiv created 2010/07/13 · arxiv updated 2010/07/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The observed hierarchy of fermion masses and mixings may be generated by renormalization group flow if the Standard Model is coupled to a near-conformal sector at high energies. If the conformal sector is supersymmetric, these effects are rendered calculable by a combination of superconformal symmetry and a-maximization. The viability of such models depends on whether they generate the observed fermion mass hierarchy before the Standard Model gauge couplings hit a Landau pole. Here we construct a variety of simple vector-like models of superconformal flavor, including both ten-centered and democratic variations. We discuss in detail the subtleties of applying the a-maximization procedure to determine anomalous dimensions of Standard Model fields. We find that a wide range of models based on SU(N) or Sp(2N) SQCD with fundamental and adjoint matter are viable theories of superconformal flavor.