In this end of the year article, Prof. Strassler mentioned that hidden valley se

Question

In this end of the year article, Prof. Strassler mentioned that hidden valley sectors could lead to some still open loopholes concerning the experimental discovery of supersymmetry and other BSM physics at the LHC such as certain kinds of extra dimensions for example. He only explains that these hidden valley sectors are some kind of an extension of minimal supersymmetric models and he does not explain this further when I ask him in the comments.

So I want to ask here:

What exactly are these hidden valley sectors, and how are they related to some kinds of minimal supersymmetric models, such as the MSSM for example? Are they rather ad hoc additions to the minimal models or are they embeded in some theories valid at higher energies?

Explanation / Answer

The name "hidden valley" models was coined in 2006 by Strassler and Zurek

and the paper above, references 1-6, show you the origin of these papers; 6 are stringy constructions. The models may be supersymmetric but they don't have to be. The "valley" refers to some place in the hidden dimensions of spacetime where an additional gauge group G added as a factor to the Standard Model is localized. The new states are uncharged under the Standard Model and only charged under the new gauge group.

The new gauge group and the new particles/fields charged under the new group are ad hoc from the field theory viewpoint and there is no minimal choice. On the other hand, such new gauge groups and states are natural in string theory so it makes to study and realize what consequences such hypothetical states would have.

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