NATURALNESS AND SUPERPARTNER MASSES OR WHEN TO GIVE UP ON WEAK SCALE SUPERSYMMETRY

Superpartner masses cannot be arbitrarily heavy if supersymmetric extensions of the standard model explain the stability of the gauge hierarchy. This ancient and hallowed motivation for weak scale supersymmetry is often quoted, yet no reliable determination of this upper limit on superpartner masses exists. In this paper we compute upper bounds on superpartner masses in the minimal supersymmetric model, and we identify which values of the superpartner masses correspond to the most natural explanation of the hierarchy stability. We compare the most natural value of these masses and their upper limits to the physics reach of current and future colliders. As a result, we find that supersymmetry could explain weak scale stability naturally even if no superpartners are discovered at the CERN LEP II or the Fermilab Tevatron (even with the Main Injector upgrade). However, we find that supersymmetry cannot provide a complete explanation of weak scale stability, if squarks and gluinos have masses beyond the physics reach of the CERN LHC. Moreover, in the most natural scenarios, many sparticles, for example, charginos, squarks, and gluinos, lie within the physics reach of either LEP II or the Tevatron. Our analysis determines the most natural value of the chargino (squark) [(gluino)] mass consistent with current experimental constraints is similar to 50 (250) [(250)] GeV and the corresponding theoretical upper bound is similar to 250 (700) [(800)] GeV.