Flavor-dependent and basis-independent measures of<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>R</mml:mi></mml:math>violation

Abstract

We construct lepton flavor-dependent and basis-independent measures of $R$-parity violation in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM). We work in the context of exact supersymmetry, neglecting the effects of Higgs vacuum expectation values and soft supersymmetry-breaking terms. We devote particular attention to appropriate choices of flavor eigenstates, and to the counting and enumeration of $R$-violating invariants in two- and three-generation models. We also make an indicative application of our results to derive possible basis-independent cosmological upper bounds on flavor-dependent violation of $R$ parity.