Phenomenology of supersymmetry with broken R-parity

Abstract In some phenomenological supersymmetric models R -parity (+1 for particles, −1 for sparticles) is spontaneously broken along with tau-lepton number L τ by a vacuum expectation value υ τ of the tau sneutrino ν τ . To avoid excess stellar energy loss through majorons, there should also be explicit L τ violation through right-handed neutrinos. To have a sufficiently light ν τ , either υ τ is very small which is unnatural and boring, and/or the Higgs mixing parameter ϵ is very small. We find that in the limit ϵ → 0: -both the forward-backward asymmetry in e + e − → τ + τ − and the τ lifetime are unchanged, -Z 0 → ggν⊥ decays are possible where ν τ is an extra neutrino, -squarks and gluinos may decay into τ or ν τ , -the photino γg can decay into ν⊥ff with a detectable secondary vertex, -single production of ( R -odd) sparticles may occur.