The Experimental Investigation of Supersymmetry Breaking

Abstract

If Nature is supersymmetric at the weak interaction scale, what can we hope to learn from experiments on supersymmetric particles? The most mysterious aspect of phenomenological supersymmetry is the mechanism of spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. This mechanism ties the observable pattern of supersymmetric particle masses to aspects of the underlying unified theory at very small distance scales. In this article, I will discuss a systematic experimental program to determine the mechanism of supersymmetry breaking. Both $pp$ and $e^+e^-$ colliders of the next generation play an essential role. [Lecture presented at the 1995 Yukawa International Symposium (YKIS`95), to appear in the proceedings.]