What is Supersymmetry and how it's related to WIMPs? How do the particles get their masses ?

Standard model and bosons

The present Standard model in Particle Physics is unable to explain why some of the interaction particles (bosons: particles with integral spin) like W and Z bosons (boson responsible for weak interaction) are very massive while interaction particle like photons (boson responsible for electro-magnetic interaction) are massless. So without Higg's bosons, particles will mass less and meaningless. In July, 2012 Scientists found a strikingly similar particle like the Higg's boson but, still there is no confirmed report of discovery of the Higg's boson and research is still going on to prove the exactness of the 2012 report.


Why Higg's boson was proposed?

To explain this, Higg’s boson has been proposed which interacts with other particles in specific ways to give them mass. In the attempt to unify quantum mechanics (involving electro-magnetic, strong and weak interaction) and general relativity (involving gravity interaction), the calculated masses around the universe is found to be enormously larger than the masses observed. In fundamental sense, the mass of Higg’s boson is inevitably huge. Nearly 80% of the mass in the universe is invisible. They are called dark matters. The constituent particles of dark matters are the WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) which are massive shadow partners corresponding to the particles observed under the Standard model. WIMPs interact only through weak and gravity interaction.

Source - LiveScience.com

Higg's field is everywhere, if assume the universe is a big invisible cocktail party then sometimes really famous celebrities come into the party as mentioned in the above example and you know what happens. The more a particle interacts with the field the more heavier it gets like protons and neutrons. Now if someone random comes in to the party then anyone will hardly notice him so he will pass away easily like electrons and neutrinos. But it's still unclear that why different particles behave differently with Higg's bosons.

What is Supersymmetry?



This correlation of a massive shadow particle with a standard particle is called Supersymmetry. In essence, Supersymmetry gives the connection between bosons and fermions (particles with half-integral spin). For a boson(fermion), there exists a massive supersymmetric fermion(boson). Pedagogically, any symmetry relation is associated with a Parity operator whose two eigenvalues (+1 and -1) correspond to two partners of the pair. In Supersymmetry, the eigenvalues (+1 and -1) of R-parity operator gives the supersymmetric partners. This is analogous to the CP-symmetry of particle and anti-particle subject to charge parity operator.