Minimal flavor violation supersymmetry: A natural theory for R-parity violation

We present an alternative approach to low-energy supersymmetry. Instead of imposing R-parity we apply the minimal flavor violation (MFV) hypothesis to the R-parity violating MSSM. In this framework, which we call MFV SUSY, squarks can be light and the proton long-lived without producing missing energy signals at the LHC. Our approach differs from that of Nikolidakis and Smith in that we impose holomorphy on the MFV spurions. The resulting model is highly constrained and R-parity emerges as an accidental approximate symmetry of the low-energy Lagrangian. The size of the small R-parity violating terms is determined by the flavor parameters, and in the absence of neutrino masses there is only one renormalizable R-parity violating interaction: the baryon-number violating ūd̄d̄ superpotential term. Low-energy observables (proton decay, dinucleon decay, and n-n̄ oscillation) pose only mild constraints on the parameter space. LHC phenomenology will depend on whether the LSP is a squark, neutralino, chargino, or slepton. If the LSP is a squark it will have prompt decays, explaining the non-observation of events with missing transverse energy at the LHC.