Anatomy and phenomenology of flavor and CP violation in supersymmetric theories

The main subject of this PhD thesis is a comprehensive and systematic analysis of flavor and CP violating low energy processes in the framework of the MSSM, the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. Supersymmetric (SUSY) models are among the best motivated and most thoroughly analyzed New Physics (NP) models. The new degrees of freedom predicted by Supersymmetry are expected to have masses of the order of the TeV scale and the direct search for these particles is one of the major goals at the LHC. A complementary strategy to probe the MSSM is given by the analysis of low energy high-precision observables, that can be modified through virtual effects of the new degrees of freedom. Of particular importance in this respect are so-called Flavor Changing Neutral Current (FCNC) processes that, forbidden in the Standard Model at the tree level, are highly sensitive probes of the flavor structure of NP models. We first analyze model independently low energy processes that show high sensitivity to the new sources of flavor and CP violation contained in the MSSM. Next, we discuss in detail the rich flavor structure of the MSSM and the implied SUSY contributions to FCNC and CP violating observables both in the low and high tan β regime. In fact, well measured low energy observables lead to remarkably strong constraints on the MSSM parameter space, which is often referred to as the SUSY flavor problem. We outline possibilities to control dangerously large SUSY effects in such observables and analyze the implied predictions for those low energy processes that are not measured with high precision, yet. We consider both the Minimal Flavor Violating MSSM and SUSY models based on abelian and non-abelian flavor symmetries that show representative flavor structures in the soft SUSY breaking terms. We identify the distinctive patterns of SUSY effects in the low energy observables, focussing in particular on CP violation in the b → sγ transition, the Bs mixing phase, the branching ratio of the rare Bs → μ+μ- decay, CP violation in D0 - anti D0 mixing and electric dipole moments. We emphasize that the characteristic correlations among the SUSY effects in these processes allow to distinguish between the different models. (orig.)