Supersymmetry-breaking parameters from renormalization group invariants at the LHC

We study renormalization group invariant (RGI) quantities in the minimal supersymmetric standard model and show that they are a powerful and simple instrument for testing high-scale models of supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking. For illustration, we analyze the frameworks of minimal and general gauge-mediated (MGM and GGM) SUSY breaking, with additional arbitrary soft Higgs mass parameters at the messenger scale. We show that if a gaugino and two first generation sfermion soft masses are determined at the LHC, the RGIs lead to MGM sum rules that yield accurate predictions for the other gaugino and first generation soft masses. RGIs can also be used to reconstruct the fundamental MGM parameters (including the messenger scale), calculate the hypercharge D-term, and find relationships among the third generation and Higgs soft masses. We then study the extent to which measurements of the full first generation spectrum at the LHC may distinguish different SUSY-breaking scenarios. In the case of the MGM model, although most deviations violate the sum rules by more than estimated experimental errors, we find a one-parameter family of GGM models that satisfy the constraints and produce the same first generation spectrum. The GGM-MGM degeneracy is lifted by differences in the third generation masses and the messenger scales.