Anomaly of Zbb coupling revisited in MSSM and NMSSM

Abstract

The Zbb coupling determined from the Z-pole measurements at LEP/SLD shows an about 3-sigma deviation from the SM prediction, which would signal the presence of new physics in association with the Zbb coupling. In this work we give a comprehensive study for the full one-loop supersymmetric effects on the Zbb coupling in both the MSSM and the NMSSM by considering all current constraints which are from the precision electroweak measurements, the direct search for sparticles and Higgs bosons, the stability of Higgs potential, the dark matter relic density, and the muon g-2 measurement. We analyze the characters of each type of the corrections and search for the SUSY parameter regions where the corrections could be sizable. We find that the sizable corrections may come from the Higgs sector with light m_A and large tan-beta, which can reach -2% and -6% for rho_b and sin^2 θ_{eff}^b,respectively. However, such sizable negative corrections are just opposite to what needed to solve the anomaly. We also scan over the allowed parameter space and investigate to what extent supersymmetry can narrow the discrepancy. We find that under all current constraints, the supersymmetric effects are quite restrained and cannot significantly ameliorate the anomaly of Zbb coupling. Compared with χ^2/dof = 9.62/2 in the SM, the MSSM and NMSSM can only improve it to χ^2/dof = 8.77/2 in the allowed parameter space. Therefore, if the anomaly of Zbb coupling is not a statistical or systematic problem, it would suggest new physics beyond the MSSM or NMSSM.