Sfermion

In supersymmetric extension to the Standard Model of physics, a sfermion is a hypothetical spin-0 superpartner particle (sparticle) of its associated fermion. Each particle has a superpartner with spin that differs by 1/2. Fermions in the SM have spin-1/2 and therefore sfermions have spin 0.

The name 'sfermion' was formed by the general rule of prefixing an 's' to the name of its superpartner, denoting that it is a scalar particle with spin 0. For instance, the electron's superpartner is the selectron and the top quark's superpartner is the stop squark.

One corollary from supersymmetry is that sparticles have the same gauge numbers as their SM partners. This means that sparticle–particle pairs have the same color charge, weak isospin charge, and hypercharge (and consequently electric charge). Unbroken supersymmetry also implies that sparticle–particle pairs have the same mass. This is evidently not the case, since these sparticles would have already been detected. Thus, sparticles must have different masses from the particle partners and supersymmetry is said to be broken.

Fundamental sfermions

Squarks

Squarks are the superpartners of quarks. These include the sup squark, sdown squark, scharm squark, sstrange squark, stop squark, and sbottom squark.

Squarks

Squark	Symbol	Associated quark	Symbol
First generation
Sup squark		Up quark
Sdown squark		Down quark
Second generation
Scharm squark		Charm quark
Sstrange squark		Strange quark
Third generation
Stop squark		Top quark
Sbottom squark		Bottom quark

Sleptons

Sleptons are the superpartners of leptons. These include the selectron, smuon, stau, and the sneutrinos.

Sleptons

Slepton	Symbol	Associated lepton	Symbol
First generation
Selectron		Electron
Selectron sneutrino		Electron neutrino
Second generation
Smuon		Muon
Smuon sneutrino		Muon neutrino
Third generation
Stau		Tau
Stau sneutrino		Tau neutrino

See also

• Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM)

References

• Martin, Stephen, P. (2011). "A Supersymmetry Primer". arXiv:hep-ph/9709356  [hep-ph].