Probing Slepton Mass Non-Universality at e^+e^- Linear Colliders

Abstract

There are many models with non-universal soft SUSY breaking sfermion mass parameters at the grand unification scale. Even in the mSUGRA model scalar mass unification might occur at a scale closer to M_Planck, and renormalization effects would cause a mass splitting at M_GUT. We identify an experimentally measurable quantity Delta that correlates strongly with delta m^2 = m^2_{selectron_R}(M_GUT) - m^2_{selectron_L}(M_GUT), and which can be measured at electron-positron colliders provided both selectrons and the chargino are kinematically accessible. We show that if these sparticle masses can be measured with a precision of 1% at a 500 GeV linear collider, the resulting precision in the determination of Delta may allow experiments to distinguish between scalar mass unification at the GUT scale from the corresponding unification at Q ~ M_Planck. Experimental determination of Delta would also provide a distinction between the mSUGRA model and the recently proposed gaugino-mediation model. Moreover, a measurement of Delta (or a related quantity Delta') would allow for a direct determination of delta m^2.