New two-loop contribution to electric dipole moment in supersymmetric theories

Abstract

We calculate a new type of two-loop contributions to the electric dipole moments of the electron and neutron in supersymmetric theories. The new contributions are originated from the potential CP violation in the trilinear couplings of the Higgs bosons to the scalar-top or the scalar-bottom quarks. These couplings were previously very weakly constrained. The electric dipole moments are induced through a mechanism analogous to that due to Barr and Zee. We find observable effects for a sizeable portion of the parameter space related to the third generation scalar-quarks in the minimal supersymmetric standard model which cannot be excluded by earlier considerations.

Erratum appended in the paper: EDM predictions are by a factor 2 larger than those given in the published version