Excited Q-Balls in the MSSM with gravity mediated supersymmetry breaking

Supersymmetric extensions of the standard model generically contain stable non-topological solitons, Q-balls, which carry baryon or lepton number. We show that large Q-balls can be copiously produced in the early universe, can survive until the present time, and can contribute to dark matter.

Gauge-mediated models of supersymmetry-breaking imply that stable Q-balls can form in the early universe and act as dark matter. All stable Q-balls in the MSSM are associated with one or more flat directions. We show that while Q-balls are produced from the fragmentation of a flat direction condensate, they quickly evolve to a ground state that is slightly away from this flat direction. In this process a (B+L)-ball can become electrically charged. This is a novel form of char...

The gauge-mediated model of supersymmetry breaking implies that stable non-topological solitons, Q-balls, could form in the early universe and comprise the dark matter. It is shown that the inclusion of the effects from gravity-mediation set an upper limit on the size of Q-balls. When in a dense baryonic environment Q-balls grow until reaching this limiting size at which point they fragment into two equal-sized Q-balls. This Q-splitting process will rapidly destroy a neutron ...

In many supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model the spectrum of states contains stable non-topological solitons, Q-balls. If formed in the Early Universe in sufficient amounts, Q-balls now contribute to cold dark matter. We discuss their experimental signatures and astrophysical implications.

The Affleck-Dine mechanism, which is one of the most attractive candidates for the baryogenesis in supersymmetric theories, often predicts the existence of baryonic Q balls in the early universe. In this scenario, there is a possibility to explain the observed baryon-to-dark matter ratio because Q balls decay into supersymmetric particles as well as into quarks. If the gravitino mass is small compared to the typical interaction energy, the longitudinal component of the gravit...

We study Q-ball formation in the expanding universe on 1D, 2D and 3D lattice simulations. We obtain detailed Q-ball charge distributions, and find that the distribution is peaked at Q^{3D}_{peak} \simeq 1.9\times 10^{-2} (|\Phi_{in}|/m)^2, which is greater than the existing result by about 60%. Based on the numerical simulations, we discuss how the Q-ball formation proceeds. Also we make a comment on possible deviation of the charge distributions from what was conjectured in ...

We discuss some interesting aspects of the $\rm Q$-ball formation during the early oscillations of the flat directions. These oscillations are triggered by the running of soft $({\rm mass})^2$ stemming from the nonzero energy density of the Universe. However, this is quite different from the standard $\rm Q$-ball formation. The running in presence of gauge and Yukawa couplings becomes strong if $m_{1/2}/m_0$ is sufficiently large. Moreover, the $\rm Q$-balls which are formed ...

Q-balls are a possible feature of any model with a conserved, global U(1) symmetry and no massless, charged scalars. It is shown that for a broad class of models of metastable supersymmetry breaking they are extremely influential on the vacuum lifetime and make seemingly viable vacua catastrophically short lived. A net charge asymmetry is not required as there is often a significant range of parameter space where statistical fluctuations alone are sufficient. This effect is e...

We consider the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis comprehensively in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. Considering the high temperature effects, we see that the Affleck-Dine field is naturally deformed into the form of the Q ball. In the natural scenario where the initial amplitude of the field and the A-terms are both determined by the nonrenormalizable superpotential, we obtain only very a narrow allowed region in the parameter sp...

To date, the properties of Q-balls arising from an Affleck-Dine condensate in gravity-mediated SUSY breaking have been obtained primarily through numerical simulations. In this work, we will derive the expected charge of the Q-balls formed in such a scenario through an analytical treatment. We will also examine the numerically observed difference between Q-ball formation in weakly charged condensates and formation in strongly charged condensates.