Phenomenology of GUT-less supersymmetry breaking

We study models in which supersymmetry breaking appears at an intermediate scale, M_in, below the GUT scale. We assume that the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters of the MSSM are universal at M_in, and analyze the morphology of the constraints from cosmology and collider experiments on the allowed regions of parameter space as M_in is reduced from the GUT scale. We present separate analyses of the (m _1/2,m₀) planes for tanβ ≤ 10 and tanβ ≤ 50, as well as a discussion of non-zero trilinear couplings, A₀. Specific scenarios where the gaugino and scalar masses appear to be universal below the GUT scale have been found in mirage-mediation models, which we also address here. We demand that the lightest neutralino be the LSP, and that the relic neutralino density not conflict with measurements by WMAP and other observations. At moderate values of M_in, we find that the allowed regions of the (m_1/2,m₀) plane are squeezed by the requirements of electroweak symmetry breaking and that the lightest neutralino be the LSP, whereas the constraint on the relic density is less severe. At very low M_in, the electroweak vacuum conditions become the dominant constraint, and a secondary source of astrophysical cold dark matter would be necessary to explain the measured relic density for nearly all values of the soft SUSY-breaking parameters and tanβ. We calculate the neutralino-nucleon cross sections for viable scenarios and compare them with the present and projected limits from direct dark matter searches.