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# Bright stars and an inactive disk in Sgr A∗ and other dormant galaxy centers. I. The optically thick disk.

## 1 Introduction

In the last decade or so, dramatic improvements in the capabilities of the infrared instruments (e.g., Ott et al. 2003) produced unprecedentedly high quality data on the distribution of stars in Sgr A (e.g., Genzel et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003a) and in the centers of other inactive galaxies. These high quality data prove that a super massive black hole (SMBH) exists in the center of our Galaxy (e.g., Schödel et al. 2002; Ghez et al. 2003b) and that the majority of the bright stars in Sgr A cluster are early-type stars (Gezari et al. 2002; Genzel et al. 2003), rising interesting questions about the star formation history in the vicinity of Sgr A.

In analogy to the disks present in LLAGN (e.g., Miyoshi et al. 1995; Quataert et al. 1999; Ho 2003), a thin inactive (i.e. formerly accreting; Kolykhalov & Sunyaev 1980) disk may exist in Sgr A. In addition, the disk presence may help to explain (Nayakshin 2003; Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2003; Nayakshin, Cuadra & Sunyaev 2003) two major mysteries of Sgr A: its amazingly low luminosity (e.g., see Baganoff 2003, and reviews by Melia & Falcke 2001 and Narayan 2002) and the recently discovered large amplitude X-ray flares (Baganoff et al. 2001). Direct observational detection of the disk could be possible if the disk were massive and thus bright enough (e.g., Falcke & Melia 1997 and Narayan 2002) but a very dim inactive disk could have eluded such a detection (Nayakshin et al. 2003).

Nayakshin & Sunyaev (2003) pointed out that the three dimensional orbits of stars such as S2 could be used to test the putative disk hypothesis. Here we extend the work of these authors by doing a much more through analysis of the parameter space as well as including new physics. In particular, under the simplest assumption of an optically thick disk, we discuss three methods to do so: (i) stellar eclipses; (ii) re-processing of the stellar UV and visible radiation into infrared; (iii) asymmetry of the integrated star cluster light. We apply the first two of the methods to the star S2, whose orbit is currently known the best out of all the close sources in Sgr A cluster. We find (§2) that absence of eclipses for S2 could be explained by a disk with a “large” inner hole, $`R_{\mathrm{in}}\stackrel{>}{}0.03\mathrm{}`$, for a rather broad range in the disk orientations. Note that for a distance of 8 kpc to the Galactic Center, 1″ corresponds to $`1.2\times 10^{17}`$ cm or $`1.3\times 10^5R_g`$, where $`R_g=2GM_{\mathrm{BM}}/c^29\times 10^{11}`$ cm is the gravitational radius for the $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}=3\times 10^6M_{}`$ black hole. The re-processing of the optical-UV luminosity of the star in the infrared, however, creates (§3) a variable and very bright emission in the standard near infrared spectral bands. This emission would add to the total “stellar” flux observed from the source (see Figure 7 below). Considering disks with no inner hole and all possible orientations we find that this additional emission would have been detected by the Genzel et al. and Ghez et al. teams. Therefore an optically thick (in $`\lambda \text{few}\mu `$m) disk is ruled out for Sgr A star cluster. We estimate that the maximum near infrared optical depth of the disk that would not violate observational constraints is about 0.01. Finally, the cluster asymmetry measurement is suggested (§4) as means to constrain disk size and orientation in nearby galaxies whose nuclear regions are visible in the optical and UV light. In the discussion section (§5) we summarize our main results.

## 2 Eclipses (and flares)

### 2.1 The Method

In this paper we consider an inactive disk optically thick in all relevant frequencies. In our study of the effects of the disk on individual stars, we pick the star S2 (Schödel et al. 2002; Ghez et al. 2003b)111Ghez et al. (2003b) refer to this star as S0-2. as the best example. This is a very bright ($`L_{\mathrm{bol}}10^5L_{}`$) star whose orbit is constrained with better precision than that for any other star near Sgr A. The existing data on the star positions in the last $`10`$ years cover (Schödel et al. 2002, 2003; Ghez et al. 2003b, see also Figure 2 below) as much as $`70`$% of its orbit. The coverage will clearly further increase with time. In addition, the star passed mere $`0.02`$″ or about $`2000`$ gravitational radii, $`R_\mathrm{g}`$, from the black hole in the pericenter (Schödel et al. 2002).

Geometrical thickness of a cold disk is very small (see Nayakshin et al. 2003) so we treat the disk as a flat surface. The disk is assumed to be in Keplerian circular rotation and is described by its inner and outer radii: $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$. An example of the projection of such a disk is shown in Fig. 1. We need two angles to describe the observational appearance of the disk: inclination $`0i\pi /2`$, between the direction normal to the disk and the line of sight, and rotation $`0\beta 2\pi `$, between the West direction and the semi-minor axis of the disk as seen in projection. (Out of the two possible semi-minor axes, we pick the one that lies on the side of the disk closest to the observer.)

Note that the angle $`\beta `$ is of no importance for disks that have azimuthal symmetry, and is thus rarely defined. For our problem, however, this angle is important since it determines the orientation of the disk relative to stellar orbits. This angle definition is somewhat different from those commonly used to define stellar orbits (see e.g., Roy 1982, §14.8), nevertheless we feel that ours is simpler to use: $`\beta `$ immediately shows which side of the disk is in front of the plane of the sky centered on Sgr A.

We use the S2 orbital parameters given by Schödel et al. (2003) and the sign of the inclination angle measured by Ghez et al. (2003b) to calculate the 3-dimensional positions of the star as a function of time. For each given set of the disk parameters, we determine the parts of the star’s orbit that are eclipsed by the disk (i.e. physically behind the disk) and those that are not. A physically plausible disk should not eclipse any of the star positions measured by Schödel et al. (2002, 2003)222Ghez et al. (2003b) observed this star in similar epochs, so using their data should yield similar constrains.. Note that since the Sun prevents observations of the GC region for about half of a year, there are large portions of the star’s orbit when it simply could not be observed.

The method described in this section can be easily extended to other stars in Sgr A, once their orbital parameters are precisely determined. S12 and S14 passed relatively close to Sgr A so they could also be useful in constraining the disk properties. The orbit of S12 is indeed known quite well, except for the sign of its inclination angle (Schödel et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003a), so a degeneracy in the 3-dimensional positions remains.

### 2.2 Sample results

To demonstrate typical results, we present two examples of disks that are not in conflict with the observations of S2. First, we consider a disk with no (or a very small, $`R_{\mathrm{in}}0`$) inner hole, outer radius of 0.1”, inclination $`i=71`$, and $`\beta =46^{}`$. In this calculation S2 was eclipsed between 2001.7 and 2002.2 (see Fig. 2), and between 2002.75 and 2003.3. The end of the eclipse in 2002.2 coincides with a flare in X-rays and NIR that results from the shock heating of the disk by the star (Nayakshin et al. 2003). The NIR flare may in fact be quite strong due to the disk re-processing of S2 radiation incident on the disk surface, last for months, and be asymmetric (see §3). The same may be said about the second flare in around 2002.75, except that for this one the eclipse begins (rather than ends) with the flare. While fitting the observed data, this set of disk parameters is a rather fine tuned one. Thus such a disk (with $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0`$) is likely to be ruled out by future NIR observations of Sgr A.

Nayakshin et al. (2003) found that the too frequent crossings of the disk by the close stars in the innermost region of the stellar cluster will actually destroy the disk there. They estimated that the inner radius of the disk may be as large as $`R_{\mathrm{in}}10^3R_\mathrm{g}`$, roughly 0.01$`\mathrm{}`$. In addition, the “accretion” disks in LLAGN do appear to have empty inner regions (Quataert et al. 1999; Ho 2003) with similar values for $`R_{\mathrm{in}}/R_\mathrm{g}`$. Similarly, there are arguments for existence of an inner hole in the standard disk surrounding the black hole in Cyg X-1 (Churazov et al. 2001). Thus it is sensible to study a disk with an inner radius $`R_{\mathrm{in}}0`$. As an example, we take a much larger disk with $`R_{\mathrm{out}}=0.2\mathrm{}`$, $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0.04\mathrm{}`$, and $`i`$ = 39 and $`\beta `$ = 347 (Fig. 3). In this example the star is eclipsed by the disk only once per orbit, not twice as in Figure 2. The star crossed the disk in 2001.8 (producing a flare) and appeared in the projection of the inner disk hole in 2002.2.

An important point to take from Fig. 3 is that the outer disk radius is unconstrained in this case, i.e. it can be arbitrarily large. This is partially due to the “fortunate” orientation of S2 orbit: Ghez et al. (2003b) showed that out of $`15`$ years, the S2 orbital period, the star spent only 0.5 year behind the black hole in the year 2002. If we take the simplest case of $`i=0`$, i.e. disk coinciding with the plane of the sky, then only the innermost 2002 points will be eclipsed if $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0`$. If $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$ is greater than about $`0.03\mathrm{}`$, then the three measured positions of S2 that were behind the plane of the sky in 2002 are observed through the hole and the rest of the star’s orbit is in front of the disk. Therefore in this case there are no eclipses even if the disk is infinitely large.

### 2.3 Constrains on Disk Size and Orientation

We now search the parameter space to determine the likelihood, in a rough statistical sense, of a disk with some fixed parameters producing no eclipses that would disagree with observations. We make a fine grid in the parameter space ($`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$, $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$, $`\mathrm{cos}i`$ and $`\beta `$) for this purpose, and for each combination of these parameters we check whether the disk eclipses any of the measured (Schödel et al. 2002, 2003) star positions. If it does, then this combination of parameters is rejected.

We concentrate first on a disk with $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0.035\mathrm{}`$. In Fig. 4 we show the maximum disk size, $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$, as a function of the rotation angle, $`\beta `$, for three different disk inclination angles $`i`$. Any value of $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ greater than the respective curve shown in Fig. 4 would produce one or more observable eclipses contradicting the data. It is seen from the Figure that smaller values of the inclination angle generally allow larger disks. This simply reflects the fact that the projected area of the inner missing disk increases as $`i`$ decreases.

If there is no physically preferred orientation of the disk, then all the points in the $`\beta `$-$`\mathrm{cos}i`$ parameter space are equally probable. Therefore, to give a rough statistical assessment of the results, we may define probability $`P(R_{\mathrm{out}})`$ as the fraction, $`F`$, of the area in this parameter space that allows the outer radius to be larger than $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$. Fig. 5 shows this fraction for different cases (for a disk with and without an inner hole). If there is no inner hole in the disk, then only 10% of the disk orientations allow outer radius $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ greater than 0.1”. When $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0.02^{\prime \prime }`$, this fraction grows to about 1/4. If the inner hole is even larger (0.05”), only a small fraction of the orientations exclude the optically thick disk. This result is at least partially due to the already noted fact that S2 spends only $`0.5`$ year behind the plane of the sky (Ghez et al. 2003b).

For the sake of the forthcoming data from the new observing season (i.e. in 2003), we added an extra point corresponding to the predicted S2 position on 2003.22. However the effect on the results was rather minor – the fraction $`F`$ changed by only $`3\%`$. Finally, since the putative disk is very geometrically thin ($`H/R10^3`$, Nayakshin et al. 2003), a nearly edge-on ($`\mathrm{cos}i=0`$) disk could be rather easily “hidden”.

### 2.4 Eclipses and flares for S2: Summary

Using the fact that the observations of the S2 star (Schödel et al. 2002, 2003; Ghez et al. 2003b) showed no eclipses in the last 10 years or so we found that an optically thick disk with no inner hole (i.e. $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0`$) is allowed for only “small” disks, with outer radii $`R_{\mathrm{out}}\stackrel{<}{}0.1\mathrm{}`$ (or about $`10^4R_\mathrm{g}10^{16}`$ cm). On the other hand, if the disk has an inner hole due to frequent star passages or other reasons, with $`R_{\mathrm{in}}\stackrel{>}{}0.03\mathrm{}`$, then the eclipses are avoided in a large fraction of the parameter space by disks that have relatively small inclination angle $`i`$. The outer disk radius in this case may be arbitrarily large.

It is important to point out that if the disk is optically thin, with optical depth $`\tau _K<1`$ in the near infrared $`K`$ band, then the eclipses are only partial and therefore harder to observe. Due to the results of the next section we will see that this is the most likely situation for Sgr A inactive disk (if there is any).

## 3 Disk reprocessed emission

### 3.1 Setup

The putative disk is heated by the optical and UV radiation of the member stars of Sgr A stellar cluster. The bulk of the absorbed radiation will be re-emitted as the dust thermal emission in infrared frequencies. This radiation may be observable and thus it is desirable to determine the magnitude of the effect. In general the calculation is by no means trivial since the disk may be optically thick in some frequencies and yet optically thin in others, and hence a careful treatment of radiation transfer is needed. However, we will consider only the case of a disk optically thick in all frequencies.

#### 3.1.1 Stellar spectrum

The star S2 is identified as a massive very bright main sequence star of stellar class between B0 and O8. In this range, the corresponding bolometric luminosity of the star is $`0.52\times 10^5L_{}`$ and the temperature is about $`30,000`$ K (Ghez et al. 2003b). For simplicity, we calculate the “model” spectral luminosity of the star as a pure blackbody with $`T=30,000`$ K and $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}=10^5L_{}`$. Observations of the Sgr A star cluster in the $`L^{}`$ band (Genzel et al. 2003) showed that S2 has an excess of about 0.6 magnitudes (or 30 mJy for S2’s parameters) in that band, compared with the “normal” colors of the surrounding stars. This excess could be due to contamination of the star spectrum by the reprocessed emission of the disk. What we call below the “observed spectral luminosity” in $`L^{}`$ band is then the blackbody emission described above plus the excess measured by Genzel et al. (2003).

#### 3.1.2 The blackbody emission

The reprocessed disk emission is a function of time. The cooling time of the disk is much shorter than the star’s orbital period (usually by orders of magnitude). The reprocessed emission can then be calculated under the steady state assumption. The disk reprocessed spectrum is thus a function of geometry, i.e. the distance between the star and the disk, $`d`$. For convenience of this section, we introduce spherical coordinate system in which the disk plane coincides with the $`\theta =\pi /2`$ plane, and the star is at the $`\theta =0`$ axis. The star’s coordinates are thus ($`r`$, $`\varphi `$, $`\theta )=(d,0,0)`$. (Note that the black hole is offset from the center of these coordinates.)

We assume local black body emissivity for the disk. In this coordinate system the distance from a point $`(r,\varphi ,\pi /2)`$ in the disk to the star is $`\sqrt{r^2+d^2}`$. We thus treat the star as a point source and the disk as an infinitely thin plane. Clearly this approach is inaccurate for $`d\stackrel{<}{}R_{}`$, but we neglect this due to very short duration of such a close approach. The effective temperature of a ring with radius $`r`$ in disk surface is

$$T_{disk}(r)=\left(\frac{L_{}d}{4\pi \sigma }\right)^{1/4}\frac{1}{\left(r^2+d^2\right)^{3/8}},$$
(1)
where $`L_{}`$ is the star luminosity and $`\sigma `$ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. Assuming the black body emissivity and integrating over $`r`$, we arrive at the integrated multicolor black body disk spectrum. If the disk is inclined at angle $`i`$, an additional factor of $`\mathrm{cos}i`$ should be used.

#### 3.1.3 Photo-ionized layer of the disk

This simple approach (equation 1) to calculating the disk spectrum is an approximation to the more realistic situation. At the temperatures given by equation 1, that are usually $`T_{disk}\stackrel{<}{}10^3`$ K, the main agent responsible for the disk opacity and emissivity is dust. In reality the ionizing UV flux of the star will create a layer of completely ionized hydrogen on the top of the disk. The dominant role in this layer is played by the gas rather than the dust. Within this thin layer, the recombination rate will balance the influx of ionizing photons from the star. Assuming temperature of order $`10^4`$ K for the layer, we find that its column depth is

$$N_H10^{18}n_{11}^1d_{15}^2\text{cm}^2,$$
(2)
where $`d_{15}`$ is distance between the star and the disk in units of $`10^{15}`$ cm, and $`n_{11}`$ is the hydrogen nuclei density in units of $`10^{11}`$ cm-3. This column depth is orders of magnitude smaller than that of the putative inactive disk, which was estimated by Nayakshin et al. (2003) to be in the range $`N_H10^{22}10^{25}`$ cm-2 in order to produce luminous enough X-ray flares (depending on the distance from Sgr A and taking model uncertainties into account). The thin layer will re-emit in the optical and the UV the incident stellar radiation. Fraction of the UV flux is emitted back out of the disk, and a fraction is emitted towards the disk, penetrating deeper and ionizing deeper layers. The flux re-emitted below the Lyman limit (and below the corresponding thresholds for photo-ionization of Helium, Oxygen and other abundant elements) can penetrate much deeper in the disk than the original ionizing stellar photons. This radiation will be absorbed chiefly by the dust grains “deep” inside the disk and then be emitted as the blackbody calculated in equation 1.

From this discussion it is clear that in reality a fraction of the incident UV radiation is reflected in the optical-UV band. Correspondingly, this fraction of the incident radiation should not be counted in equation 1. However, for the stellar spectrum that we assume here, i.e. the blackbody with $`T=30,000`$ K, only about 20% of the energy is emitted at frequencies above the Lyman limit, and therefore it seems that the shielding effect of the ionized layer should not be very large. Similarly, the dust scattering opacity could in certain wavelengths exceed that for the dust absorption, and then a significant fraction of the incident stellar radiation flux could be reflected back with no change in frequency. However we calculated (using Draine & Lee 1984 optical constants and a Mie code provided by K. Dullemond) the dust opacity for several typical grain sizes and found that this occurs in a rather narrow range of conditions, and hence we neglected this effect.

We also estimated the Brackett $`\gamma `$ ($`\lambda =2.16\mu `$m) line flux from this photo-ionized layer of gas. We used the number of ionizing photons appropriate for a B0 star, a layer temperature of 10,000 K and the case B approximation (see Osterbrock 1989). The resulting equivalent width of this line333This is so for any distance $`d`$ because the line luminosity is $`j_{Br\gamma }\pi d^2n_{11}N_H`$ const $`j_{Br\gamma }`$ according to equation 2 is $``$ 60 Å, about twenty times larger than the absorption in the Br$`\gamma `$ line from the star itself (see Fig. 1 in Ghez et al. 2003b). In addition, we estimated the continuum free-free emission from the photo-ionized layer to yield $`\nu L_\nu 10^{35}`$ erg/sec at 2.2 $`\mu `$m, which is at the level of a few tenths of S2 spectral luminosity (see Fig. 6), above the current uncertainties in the flux of S2 (see Ott et al. 2003). Thus, if such a strong Brackett $`\gamma `$ and the free-free continuum emission from the disk were present, they should have been detected by now.

However, the above estimates are extremely sensitive to the star’s spectrum. Ghez et al. (2003b) conclude that S2 is an O8-B0 main-sequence star. If we assume that S2 spectral type is B0.5, then the amount of photo-ionizing photons decrease by a factor of $`8`$. Then both the line and the continuum disk decrease by the same factor. In addition, the PSF in the $`K_s`$ band is comparable to the size of the emitting area of the disk. It is thus possible that a significant fraction of the ionized layer’s emission would be counted as a background “local” gas emission. Indeed, (Ghez et al. 2003b) note that the background emission accounts for as much as 50 % of S2’s flux. Hence to answer this question quantitatively, one needs to do a much more careful modeling of the disk emission, i.e. convolving the latter with the PSF instead of simply adding the two components.

Finally, due to a much faster disk rotation (compared to $``$ 220 km/s for S2; Ghez et al. 2003b) the Br$`\gamma `$ emission line should be 5-10 times broader444Here we assume that the star-disk separation is of order the star’s distance to black hole, $`r_b`$, in which case a large fraction of the disk is illuminated by the star. If instead $`dr_b`$, then the line may be mainly shifted but not significantly broadened. than the line from the star, making it more in line with the observed S2 and “local gas” spectrum (Ghez et al. 2003b).

### 3.2 Reprocessed emission of an infinite disk

In this section we study the reprocessed disk emission for disks with no inner hole and with an infinitely large outer radius (the disk is then a plane). In Fig. 6 we show the disk spectral luminosity, i.e. $`\nu L_\nu `$, (integrated over the $`4\pi `$ steradian of the sky) for the frequencies corresponding to the infrared bands $`H`$, $`K_s`$ and $`L^{}`$ (1.81, 1.38 and 0.79 $`\times 10^{14}`$ Hz, or 1.66, 2.18 and 3.80 $`\mu `$m, respectively), shown as a function of the star-disk separation $`d`$. The luminosity of S2 in these three bands is also shown for comparison with the horizontal lines on the bottom of the Figure. On the right vertical axis of the plot, the maximum effective temperature in the disk is shown.

Figure 6 shows that the contribution of the disk can not be ignored for distances $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ few $`\times 10^{16}`$ cm. S2 radiates in the Rayleigh-Jeans regime in the near infrared, and therefore only a small fraction of the star’s bolometric luminosity is emitted at these frequencies. The disk captures a half of the star’s bolometric luminosity (mostly optical-UV) and re-processes it into much smaller frequencies. Therefore the near infrared disk emission can be much brighter than the star. The distance of $`10^{16}`$ cm is quite large in comparison with S2’s pericenter ($`3\times 10^{15}`$ cm), and is of the order of S2’s apocenter. Therefore the reprocessed emission could be expected to be large for S2 for the whole of the year 2002.

Figure 6 also indicates that the optically thick disk assumption may actually break down when the star is too close to the disk. Some of the dust species are destroyed (evaporated) when the dust temperature is greater than several hundred Kelvin, and at $`T1,500`$ K the dust can be nearly completely destroyed. Therefore our treatment is not accurate for $`d\stackrel{<}{}10^{15}`$ cm, where the results will be dependent on the exact disk column depth, dust properties, etc. We overestimate the disk emission at these small distances, and hence the maxima reached by the curves in Figure 6 will be in reality smaller by factors of few to ten. Nevertheless it is clear that the disk emission would still dominate over the S2 emission and this fact will be sufficient for our further analysis.

One important simplifying assumption that we make while performing these calculations is the following. In equation 1 it is explicitly assumed that the illuminated side of the disk faces the observer, i.e. that the star is in front of the disk. In the opposite case the results depend on the mean optical depth of the disk, $`\tau `$. Approximately, the radiation emitted from the back side of the disk will be reduced by a factor of $`1/\tau `$. In what follows we neglect this effect, i.e. assume that the front and the back side of the disk radiate the same spectrum which is roughly correct for $`\tau `$ not too much larger than unity. In the following figures, however, we point out the times when the star was behind the disk; the thermal disk emission at these times should be remembered to be smaller than that indicated in the figures by an amount depending on $`\tau `$. To show the maximum possible effect of this complication, we simply turned off all the NIR emission during an eclipse for one particular calculation (see Fig. 8). Our main conclusion – a rather unlikely presence of an optically thick disk in Sgr A– is unchanged, and thus a better treatment of the back-side illuminated disk is not necessary.

### 3.3 The reprocessed disk emission for S2’s orbit

We now calculate the combined star plus disk luminosity for S2 (Figure 7), first assuming that the disk is inclined at $`i=60`$ and that rotation angle $`\beta =300`$. The triangles show the times when Schödel et al. (2002, 2003) actually observed the star. The maximum near infrared luminosity reached by the source is the same, roughly half the star’s bolometric luminosity, in all the three frequency bands. The maxima are reached nearly simultaneously around the time when the star physically crosses the disk. The very sharp drops in the disk luminosity near the maxima are simply due to the fact that the disk becomes “too” hot when the star is very close to the surface of the disk (e.g., see Fig. 6). In this case the three near infrared bands are on the Rayleigh-Jeans part of the disk blackbody curves and the emission is therefore weak.

The part of the light curve between the two maxima in $`2001.8`$ and $`2002.4`$ is the time when the star is eclipsed by the disk so that the disk emission should be actually reduced at these moments as we explained above. In Fig. 8 we show the extreme case when the optical depth of the disk is so high that all the emission is absorbed by the disk material during the eclipse. Comparing the Figs. 7 and 8, we observe that any optically thick infinite disk, oriented as in these Figures, is ruled out by the existing data. There has been no changes in S2’s $`K_s`$ band flux down to $`1020`$% level for all 10 years of the observations (private communication from R. Schödel).

We test the sensitivity of the result on the disk inclination angle, $`i`$, in Fig. 9, where we fix the disk rotation angle, $`\beta `$ = 350, but vary $`i`$. Three different values of $`i`$ (30, 60 and 80) are chosen. Only the $`K_s`$ luminosity of the star plus disk system is shown. The maximum near infrared luminosity reached by the three curves is the same as in Figure 7, but the times of the maxima and the width of the curves are different. It is apparent that it is hard to escape the tight observational constraints unless the disk oriented exactly edge on to the observer.

Finally, we perform a search in the parameter space in the manner similar to that done in §2.3. In particular, we make a fine grid in the disk orientation parameter space. For every combination of $`\mathrm{cos}i`$ and $`\beta `$, we determine the $`K_s`$ luminosity of the disk at the epochs when S2 was actually observed by Schödel et al. (2003). We then pick the maximum of these values. The disk $`K_s`$ luminosity found in this way is the maximum luminosity that should have been observed by Schödel et al. (2003) for given $`\mathrm{cos}i`$ and $`\beta `$. The result is displayed in Figure 10 where we show the ratio of the disk flux to that of the star for the three NIR frequencies, averaged over $`\beta `$. Except for nearly edge-on disks, the reprocessed emission should have been detected by now. Since this effect has not been observed, we can rule out the existence of an optically thick disk with no inner hole in Sgr A.

### 3.4 The case of S2 and disks with empty inner regions

We now perform similar calculations but allowing the disk to have an inner hole of a given size $`R_{\mathrm{in}}0`$. Figure 11 shows the light curves in the three frequency bands for the disk inclined at $`i=60`$ and $`\beta =300`$, with $`R_i=0.05`$″. Comparing the light curves with those shown in Fig. 7, the most striking difference is the absence of the second maximum in the $`H`$ and $`K_s`$ bands. This is due to the fact that there is now only one crossing of the disk with the star – in 2001.8 – while the second crossing shown in Fig. 7 does not occur because there is no inner disk for $`R<R_{\mathrm{in}}`$. Nevertheless the strength of the first maximum is such that such a disk is still ruled out.

We then repeated the same calculation (same $`i`$ and $`\beta `$) but with a larger inner hole radius, $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0.1`$″. The result is shown in Fig. 12. Since the star is relatively far from the disk surface for all of its orbit for these particular disk parameters, there are no eclipses or detectable increases in the $`H`$ or $`K_s`$ bands. Further, until 2002, the S2 star has not been detected in the $`L^{}`$ band, therefore the light curves in Fig. 12 appear to be consistent with the observations. In fact, we feel that by adjusting the disk parameters it is possible to obtain the $`L^{}`$ band spectral excess similar to that observed by Genzel et al. (2003). We shall explore this in detail in the future papers.

### 3.5 Summary: constraints due to disk reprocessed emission

We have shown that the reprocessed emission of the disk illuminated by the star is a very powerful constraint on the disk presence and/or properties. In fact, the effect is “stronger” than stellar eclipses that we studied in §2 (see also Nayakshin & Sunyaev 2003). The luminous stars emit most of their radiation in the visible and UV ranges. The disk re-processes this emission in the NIR band which then appears much brighter than the star itself in the same frequency. We have seen that the reprocessed NIR disk emission is up to a factor of 100 higher than that of the star. At the same time eclipses yield an effect of order unity.

Analyzing the predicted NIR light curves for S2 we found that an optically thin disk with a very small inner hole $`R_{\mathrm{in}}0`$ is ruled out. The disk emission would have been seen by now, whereas observations do not show any variability in S2 $`K`$ band fluxes. We then tested disks with non-zero values of $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$, and found that only for rather large values of $`R_{\mathrm{in}}\stackrel{>}{}0.1`$″ such disks are permitted.

## 4 Star cluster asymmetry due to stellar eclipses

In §2 we explored the eclipses of the individual stars by the putative optically thick disk. To observe such eclipses one should be able to resolve individual star’s orbits, which is extremely difficult and has been made possible only for our Galactic Center (see Schödel et al. 2003; Ghez et al. 2003a). At the same time, similar eclipses of unresolved stars of the cluster should also be occurring, and hence one may hope to detect the disk “shadow” on the background emission of the nuclear cluster. In doing the calculations below, we will be concerned with the optical-UV emission rather than with the infrared, as we were in the previous sections. Our working assumption is that the visible and UV flux incident on the disk is absorbed and reprocessed into the near infrared emission (see §3), reflecting only a small fraction of the radiation in the visible-UV range. Hence we treat the disk as an optically thick absorbing surface in this section.

We will only consider disks with no inner holes, i.e. $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0`$, since the instrument resolution (for other than Sgr A galactic centers) is usually worse than the actual non-zero value of $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$. Note that an enhanced emission from the inner hole could in principle be detected, but its asymmetry is currently impossible to resolve. In addition, the star cluster is assumed to be spherically symmetric. For this reason the angle $`\beta `$ is no longer of importance. Instead we define the $`xyz`$ coordinate system, with $`z`$ axis directed straight to us, and $`x`$ and $`y`$ as in Fig. 13. The $`x`$ axis is positive where the disk is closer to the observer.

We also define the column density of stars along the line of sight, $`N(x,y)`$, as the integral of the star density, $`n(R)`$, through the line of sight from the disk to the observer, located at infinity,

$$N(x,y)=_z^{}^{\mathrm{}}n(R)𝑑z.$$
(3)
where $`z^{}=\mathrm{}`$ if the line of sight does not intercept the disk projection, and $`z^{}=z_{\mathrm{disk}}`$, the respective $`z`$-coordinate of the disk in the opposite case. For definitiveness, we take the spherically symmetric density profile $`n(R)R^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha =1.4`$ for $`R<R_{cusp}10^{\prime \prime }`$ given by Genzel et al. (2003) and consider the case where $`R_{\mathrm{out}}R_{cusp}`$.

In Fig. 13 we show the resulting map of the stellar column density for the disk inclination angle $`i`$ = 80. The projection of the disk shadow is clearly seen. The boundaries of the disk appear as sharp discontinuities in the surface brightness of the star cluster. This effect is the strongest near the side of the disk that is closer to the observer (positive $`x`$ in Figure 13).

Also note that the star cluster image appears anisotropic on all scales smaller than the disk outer radius. This fact allows us to introduce an “anisotropy measure”, $`A`$, defined as

$$A(r)=\frac{\sqrt{\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }N^2}(r)}}{\overline{N}(r)},$$
(4)
where $`\overline{N}(r)`$ is the angle-averaged number count of stars at projected distance $`r`$ from the star cluster center away:

$$\overline{N(r)}=\frac{1}{2\pi }_0^{2\pi }N(r,\varphi )𝑑\varphi .$$
(5)
Here we used in the plane of the sky the common polar ($`r\varphi `$) coordinates centered on the black hole. We also defined $`\overline{N^2}(r)`$ in an analogous way and then $`\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }N^2(r)}=\overline{N^2(r)}(\overline{N(r)})^2`$.

The anisotropy measure is independent of the disk orientation in the plane of the sky (i.e. angle $`\beta `$; see Fig. 1). It is also independent of the absolute luminosity of the star cluster. Fig. 14 shows the anisotropy measure for three different values of the disk inclination angle as a function of radius $`R`$ in units of the disk radius $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$. For small inclination angles, $`i\stackrel{<}{}30`$, $`A(R)`$ is nearly zero in the innermost part of the disk since there is little variation in $`N(x,y)`$ along the circle with $`R<R_{\mathrm{out}}\mathrm{cos}i`$. However for $`R>R_{\mathrm{out}}\mathrm{cos}i`$, the projected semi-minor axis of the disk, the anisotropy measure is as high as 0.3, which is due to the high contrast between $`N(R,0)`$ and $`N(0,R)`$. The case of the moderate inclination angle, $`i=60`$ shows that the anisotropy measure increases in the innermost parts of the cluster, and there is again a maximum around $`R=R_{\mathrm{out}}\mathrm{cos}i`$. This maximum appears to be the feature with which one may attempt to identify the disk inclination angle, if radius $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ of the disk could be inferred from independent considerations. Finally, the case of a very highly inclined disk, $`i=80`$, is mostly a declining curve (after $`R=R_{\mathrm{out}}\mathrm{cos}i`$).

This method has the advantage that no individual stellar orbits are needed. As the time scales for disk evolution are very long, data collected over many years and even tens of years may be combined to try to resolve the innermost region of the star cluster.

## 5 Discussion

In this paper we studied three ways to detect the disk presence in the infrared and optical/UV frequencies, and we then applied them to the particular case of Sgr A. We found that the orbit of star S2 alone requires the disk to be optically thin with near infrared optical depth no larger than $`0.01`$. We now discuss in greater detail the physical motivation for believing there may be a disk in Sgr A, and the implications of this paper’s results for the disk hypothesis.

### 5.1 A cold disk in Sgr A?

Sgr A is thought to be physically similar to Low Luminosity AGN (Ho 1999) since as long as radiative cooling is not important, the dynamics of the accreting gas should be independent of the actual accretion rate (e.g., see review by Narayan 2002). Ho (2003) noted that cold disks seem to be one of the established features of LLAGN. From spectral energy distributions and from profiles of the double-peaked emission lines, the inner radii of these disks are in the range $`10^210^3R_\mathrm{g}`$ (see Quataert et al. 1999; Ho 2003). By analogy, such a disk can be expected to exist in the Galactic Center.

Furthermore, Nayakshin & Sunyaev (2003) suggested that star-disk crossings may be the process that emits X-ray flares observed in Sgr A(Baganoff et al. 2001; Goldwurm et al. 2003). While crossing the disk, the stars drive shocks into the disk material; the gas is heated to temperatures of order $`10^710^9`$ K and emits X-rays. Nayakshin et al. (2003) showed that the number of star-disk crossings per day, given by the observed distribution of stars in Sgr A(Genzel et al. 2003) is close to the observed rate of X-ray flaring (Baganoff 2003); the predicted flare duration and multi-frequency spectra are in a broad agreement with the observations. Nayakshin (2003) also suggested that the disk may be an effective cooling surface for the hot winds, and that the hot flow is essentially frozen at large radii, preventing it from piling up at small radii. This suggestion could be a part of the explanation for the observed dimness of Sgr A, although there are other possible explanations (see e.g., the review by Quataert 2003, and further references there).

Levin & Beloborodov (2003), using data of Genzel et al. (2000), recently concluded that most of the innermost young bright Helium-I stars (that are thought to “feed” Sgr A by producing powerful hot winds) line up in a single plane. This result makes it very likely that these hot young stars may have been created from a single large molecular cloud that was compressed to high densities that led to star formation. It is not possible that all of the gas in the molecular cloud would turn into stars; the remainder would have to form a relatively massive gaseous disk, similar to the bright disks of AGN. A tiny not accreted remnant of the original disk could then still be present (Nayakshin 2003; Nayakshin et al. 2003).

Finally, Genzel et al. (2003) report discovery of an infrared excess in the spectrum of S2 in 2002 (e.g., see Fig. 7) as compared to other similar sources in the region. Namely, S2 appeared to be brighter by $`0.6`$ magnitude in the $`\lambda =3.8\mu `$m ($`L^{}`$ band) compared with what is expected from the spectra of other bright nearby stars. Such an excess is usually interpreted as evidence for the dust presence around the star (e.g., Scoville & Kwan 1976). In the absence of the inactive (dusty) disk, the only source of dust would have to be the hot $`T\stackrel{<}{}10^9`$ K flow itself (Genzel et al. 2003). While this is not physically impossible, the presence of the dust in a $`T\stackrel{<}{}10^9`$ K gas is somewhat problematic as the dust can be destroyed by sputtering in such a gas (e.g., Draine & Salpeter 1979). Our estimates show that all but the largest interstellar grains would be destroyed by the sputtering by the time the gas reaches radii of order S2’s pericenter. We suggest that the re-processing of the stellar radiation in a putative disk could be an alternative way to explain the infrared excess of S2. Whereas an optically thick disk that we explored in this paper produces in fact a too strong an excess, an optically thin disk (with “right” orientation and $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$ values) appears to be promising in this regard (see Fig. 12).

### 5.2 Constraints on the disk in Sgr A

#### 5.2.1 Optically thick disk

As we have shown in §2, the so far absent eclipses of the star S2 (Schödel et al. 2002, 2003; Ghez et al. 2003b) requires an optically thick disk to have a relatively large inner hole $`R_{\mathrm{in}}\stackrel{>}{}`$ few$`\times 10^2`$ arcsecond (or equivalently few $`\times 10^{15}`$ cm). A hole with these dimensions is not unreasonable (e.g., Nayakshin et al. 2003). However in §3 we showed that the disk reprocessed emission yields an even stronger signature than eclipses. We found that the disk with no inner hole and a very large $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ is incompatible with the observations for any combination of disk orientation angles. We then tested the case of a non-zero value for $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$ and found that only disks with inner holes as large as $`0.1^{\prime \prime }10^{16}\text{cm}10^4R_\mathrm{g}`$ yield NIR “echoes” that are weak enough to escape the observational constraints. As such, our results are in a complete agreement with the previous results by Falcke & Melia (1997) and Narayan (2002), who also ruled out the existence of an optically thick disk with $`R_{\mathrm{in}}=0`$ in Sgr A.

#### 5.2.2 Optically thin disk

It is possible to make rough estimates on how optically thin the disk should be to satisfy the observational constraints. For this we simply assume that the opacity of the grains is gray, in which case the grain temperature should be equal to the effective one (equation 1). Then the disk spectral luminosity is that calculated in this paper but scaled down by factor of $`\tau 1`$, where $`\tau `$ is the grey disk optical depth in the NIR. Referring now to Fig. 7, we see that in the maximum the $`K_s`$ band disk spectral luminosity exceeds that of the star by a factor of several hundred. $`K_s`$ flux did not vary within $`1020`$% uncertainty during the last 10 years of S2 observations (private communications from R. Genzel and R. Schödel). On the other hand the background cluster emission accounts for as much as 50% of the flux in $`K_s`$ band (Ghez et al. 2003b), and hence we estimate that the optical depth of the disk at 2.2$`\mu `$m should be no larger than $`\tau 10^2`$. However, if $`R_{\mathrm{in}}0`$, the constrains imposed by the 2002 measured positions can be relaxed and a larger optical depth might be consistent with the observations.

To produce X-ray flares via star-disk interactions as luminous as observed, the mid-plane surface density of the disk was estimated by Nayakshin et al. (2003) at around $`10^{11}`$ Hydrogen nuclei per cm3 (although we note that due to simplicity of the calculations this value is uncertain by up to a factor of 10). With this the disk surface density, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, was estimated as $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1r_4^{3/2}`$ g/cm2, where $`r_4`$ is disk radius in units of $`10^4`$ gravitational radii, $`R_\mathrm{g}`$. For $`R=0.03\mathrm{}4\times 10^3R_\mathrm{g}`$, we have $`\mathrm{\Sigma }0.2`$ g/cm2. Using the standard interstellar grain opacity and dust-to-gas mass ratio, one gets opacity at 2.2 $`\mu `$m of $`\tau _{2.2}0.6`$ (see Figure 1 in Voshchinnikov 2002). Such a disk would violate the constraints that we obtained in this paper. Even assuming that Nayakshin et al. (2003) overestimated the mid-plane density by a factor of 10, the NIR opacity still appears to be a little too large.

On the other hand, the dust grains are destroyed with each star’s passage. Smallest grains are especially vulnerable to such a destruction. Of course when the star leaves the disk, the dust will reform. With the gas densities as high as $`10^{11}`$ cm-3, the dust grains could grow at a rate as large as $`10^3`$ cm/year (Nayakshin et al. 2003). In addition, because only the largest grains survive the star passages, the large grains will grow preferentially. Therefore, the combination of the repeated dust destruction and dust growth could create larger grains than that in the interstellar medium. Using the optical constants from Draine & Lee (1984) and a simple Mie theory code to compute dust opacity (provided by K. Dullemond), we estimated that for the standard dust-to-gas mass ratio of $`0.01`$ the NIR opacity is reduced to a $`1/10`$th of its interstellar value at 2.2 $`\mu `$m if the typical grain size is $`a\stackrel{>}{}30\mu `$m.

### 5.3 Star cluster asymmetry due to disk presence

In §4 we considered the effects of the disk on the appearance of the integrated star cluster brightness along a given line of sight. The disk was assumed to be optically thick and completely absorbing at the relevant wavelength (i.e. optical or UV). We found that the disk (obviously) imprints a shadow on the star cluster light. We then defined the “asymmetry measure” parameter $`A`$, defined in equation 4, which appears to be a convenient indicator of the disk presence. In particular, as a function of radial distance from the star cluster center, $`A(r)`$ has a clearly defined shape with characteristic features that could be used to constrain the inclination of the disk. Observational determination of $`A(r)`$ may thus allow one to observationally test the disk presence in the nuclear stellar clusters of nearby galaxies.

## 6 Conclusions

In this paper we studied some of the potentially observable signatures of a cold disk presence in our Galactic Center, and in the centers of other galaxies. Such disks may be the remnants of previously active, i.e. accreting, disks. This work is essentially an expansion of the ideas presented in Nayakshin & Sunyaev (2003) via (i) using the exact and updated S2 star orbit in the study of possible eclipses of S2; (ii) including new effects – the disk re-processing and star cluster anisotropy. Our present work is also complementary to that of Nayakshin, Cuadra & Sunyaev (2003) who studied X-ray and near infrared flares produced when stars pass through the cold disk.

The strongest of the three effects considered in the paper turned out to be the re-processing of the stellar visible radiation into the near infrared bands (§3). We found that if an optically thick disk were present in Sgr A, the reprocessed emission of the bright star S2 would have been observed by now in all $`H`$, $`K_s`$ and $`L^{}`$ near infrared bands. Since this contradicts to the data, an optically thick disk would have to have a rather large inner radius, $`R_{\mathrm{in}}\stackrel{>}{}0.1^{\prime \prime }10^4R_\mathrm{g}10^{16}`$ cm.

At the same time, the observed $`L^{}`$ band excess in S2’s spectrum in the year 2002 (Genzel et al. 2003), is most naturally interpreted as a signature of the re-processing of S2 stellar radiation into this band. We estimated that the disk invoked by Nayakshin et al. (2003) would have the “right” dust opacity if the minimum size of the grains in the disk would be about $`30\mu `$m. Such a large minimum grain size may be the result of the unusually high (by interstellar standards) density in the disk and the too frequent stellar passages through the disk. Therefore, both the X-ray flares of Sgr A and the mid-infrared excess of S2 in 2002 may be the result of the interactions of the stars with an optically thin inactive disk.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank R. Genzel and R. Schödel for useful comments and preprints of their new unpublished work. We also acknowledge the expertise and computational help of K. Dullemond in estimating the dust opacity and the resulting disk spectrum. Finally, we thank the referee, W. Duschl, for comments and suggestions that improved the quality of presentation of our paper.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The understanding of CP violation, first observed in $`K`$ decays , remains an open and most challenging question in particle physics. In the Standard Model (SM), CP violation arises from the presence of complex Yukawa couplings in the lagrangian. In electroweak interactions, CP violation originates in the misalignment of mass and charged-current interaction eigenstates, and is parametrized by the physical phase of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix , $`\delta _{CKM}`$. Although SM predictions are in good agreement with experimental observations, including recent measurements at $`B`$-factories, the SM amount of CP violation fails to account for the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe . Moreover, one is yet to find an answer for the strong CP problem, or in other words, to understand the smallness of the $`\overline{\theta }`$ parameter. Bounds from the electric dipole moment (EDM) of the neutron force this flavour-conserving CP violating phase to be as small as $`10^{10}`$, and this fine-tuning is most unnatural in the sense of ’t Hooft , since the lagrangian does not acquire any new symmetry in the limit where $`\overline{\theta }`$ vanishes.

In supersymmetric (SUSY) extensions of the SM there are additional sources of explicit CP violation, arising from complex soft SUSY breaking terms as well as from the complex SUSY conserving $`\mu `$ parameter. As pointed in , these phases can account for the values of the $`K`$ and $`B`$ meson CP violating observables, even in the absence of $`\delta _{CKM}`$. However, the supersymmetric phases also generate large contributions to the EDMs of the electron, neutron and mercury atom. The non-observation of the EDMs imposes strong constraints on the SUSY phases, forcing them to be very small. Putting these new phases to zero is also not natural in the sense of ’t Hooft. This is the so-called SUSY CP problem and many are the solutions that have been proposed to overcome it (for a review see Ref. ).

An attractive approach to the SUSY CP problem is to impose CP invariance on the lagrangian, and spontaneously break it through complex vacuum expectation values (VEVs) for the Higgs scalar fields . Thus, CP symmetry is restored at high energy and CP violating phases appear as dynamical variables. Spontaneous CP violation (SCPV) is also an appealing solution to the strong CP problem, since in this case one naturally has a vanishing $`\overline{\theta }`$ at tree level . Further motivation to SCPV stems from string theories, where it has been shown that in string perturbation theory CP exists as a good symmetry that could be spontaneously broken .

SCPV requires at least two Higgs doublets. The Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is a very appealing example of a two Higgs doublet model. However, it is well known that, at tree level, SCPV does not occur in the MSSM . On the other hand, radiative corrections can generate CP violating operators  but then, according to the Georgi-Pais theorem on radiatively broken global symmetries , one expects to have light Higgs states in the spectrum , which are excluded by LEP .

The case of the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) , where a singlet superfield is added to the Higgs sector, is more involved. In the usual $`_3`$ invariant version of the model, where only dimensionless couplings are allowed in the superpotential, it has been shown that, although CP violating extrema are present at tree level, these are always maxima, not minima of the scalar potential, with negative squared masses for the Higgs states . Hence SCPV is not feasible at tree level in the NMSSM. Furthermore, as in the MSSM case, radiatively induced CP violating minima always bear light Higgs states which are difficult to accommodate with LEP data . The possibility of SCPV has been studied in more general non-minimal models, where no $`_3`$ symmetry is assumed and dimensionful, SUSY conserving terms are present in the superpotential . In this case, it has been shown that SCPV is possible and could account for the observed value of $`\epsilon _K`$ in the kaon system .

The first drawback of the general NMSSM with respect to the $`_3`$ invariant version, is that it no longer provides a solution to the $`\mu `$ problem of the MSSM, which was one of the original motivations of the NMSSM. The second is that, in the absence of a global symmetry under which the singlet field is charged, divergent singlet tadpoles proportional to $`M_{\mathrm{Planck}}`$, generated by non-renormalizable higher order interactions, can appear in the effective scalar potential . Such tadpole terms would destabilize the hierarchy between the electroweak (EW) scale and the Planck scale. On the other hand, if $`_3`$, or any other discrete symmetry, is imposed at the lagrangian level, it is spontaneously broken at the EW scale once the Higgs fields get non-vanishing VEVs, giving rise to disastrous cosmological domain walls . It has recently been argued that using global discrete $`R`$-symmetries for the complete theory - including non-renormalizable interactions - one could construct a $`_3`$ invariant renormalizable superpotential and generate a $`_3`$ breaking non-divergent singlet tadpole term in the scalar potential . These models are free of both stability and domain wall problems, and all the dimensionful parameters, including the singlet tadpole, are generated through the soft SUSY breaking terms.

The aim of this paper is to study the possibility of SCPV in the NMSSM with an extra singlet tadpole term in the effective potential, taking into account the latest experimental constraints on Higgs boson and sparticle masses, as well as the observed value of $`\epsilon _K`$. In particular, contrary to what was asserted in Ref. , we obtain that in the $`_3`$ symmetric limit, SCPV cannot be accommodated with the LEP exclusion limit on a light Higgs boson. On the other hand, we show that if $`_3`$ is broken by a non-zero singlet tadpole, it is possible to spontaneously break CP, satisfy the LEP constraints on the Higgs boson mass and have $`\epsilon _K`$ compatible with the experimental value. The paper is organized as follows: in section 2 we define the model and derive the Higgs boson mass matrix. The procedure to scan the parameter space and the resulting Higgs boson spectrum are discussed in section 3. Section 4 is devoted to the calculation of $`\epsilon _K`$. Finally, we present the conclusions in section 5.

## 2 Overview of the model

### 2.1 Higgs scalar potential

In addition to the Yukawa couplings for the quarks and leptons (as in the MSSM), the superpotential of the NMSSM is defined by

$$W_{\mathrm{Higgs}}=\lambda \widehat{H}_1\widehat{H}_2\widehat{N}+\frac{1}{3}\kappa \widehat{N}^3,$$
(2.1)
where $`\widehat{H}_1=(\widehat{H}_1^0,\widehat{H}_1^{})`$ is the Higgs doublet superfield coupled to the down-type fermions, $`\widehat{H}_2=(\widehat{H}_2^+,\widehat{H}_2^0)`$ the one coupled to the up-type ones, and $`\widehat{N}`$ is a singlet. Once EW symmetry is broken, the scalar component of $`\widehat{N}`$ acquires a VEV, $`x=|N|`$, thus generating an effective $`\mu `$ term

$$\mu \lambda x.$$
(2.2)
The superpotential in Eq. (2.1) is scale invariant, and the EW scale appears only through the soft SUSY breaking terms. It is also invariant under a global $`_3`$ symmetry. The possible domain wall problem due to the spontaneous breaking of the $`_3`$ symmetry at the EW scale is assumed to be solved by adding non-renormalizable interactions which break the $`_3`$ symmetry without spoiling the quantum stability with unwanted divergent singlet tadpoles. This can be achieved by replacing the $`_3`$ symmetry by a set of discrete $`R`$-symmetries, broken by the soft SUSY breaking terms . At low energy, the additional non-renormalizable terms allowed by the $`R`$-symmetries generate an extra linear term for the singlet in the effective potential, through tadpole loop diagrams

$$V_{\mathrm{tadpole}}=\xi ^3N+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,$$
(2.3)
where $`\xi `$ is of the order of the soft SUSY breaking terms ($`<`$$``$ 1 TeV). Since our approach is phenomenological, we take $`\xi `$ as a free parameter, without considering the details of the non-renormalizable interactions that generate it. Likewise, we do not discard the singlet self-coupling term in Eq. (2.1) by imposing $`\kappa =0`$, which is possible once $`\xi 0`$ , but rather assume $`\kappa `$ to be a free parameter.

In addition to $`V_{\mathrm{tadpole}}`$, the tree level Higgs potential has the usual $`F`$ and $`D`$ terms as well as soft SUSY breaking terms:

$`V_F`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\left(|H_1|^2|N|^2+|H_2|^2|N|^2+|H_1|^2|H_2|^2\right)`$
$`\lambda ^2(H_1^0H_2^0H_1^{}H_2^++\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.)+\kappa ^2|N|^4,`$
$`V_D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_1^2+g_2^2}{8}}\left(|H_1|^2|H_2|^2\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^2}{2}}|H_1^{}H_2|^2,`$ (2.4)
$`V_{\mathrm{soft}}`$ $`=`$ $`m_{H_1}^2|H_1|^2+m_{H_2}^2|H_2|^2+m_N^2|N|^2`$
$`+(\lambda A_\lambda NH_1H_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\kappa A_\kappa N^3+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.),`$
where $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$ are the $`U(1)_Y`$ and $`SU(2)_L`$ coupling constants, respectively. In what follows, the soft SUSY breaking terms $`m_{H_1},m_{H_2},m_N,A_\lambda ,A_\kappa `$ are taken as free parameters at the weak scale and no assumption is made on their value at the GUT scale. We assume that the lagrangian is CP invariant, which means that all the parameters appearing in Eqs. (2.3, 2.1) are real. On the other hand, once the EW symmetry is spontaneously broken, the neutral Higgs fields acquire complex VEVs that spontaneously break CP. By gauge invariance, one can take $`H_1^{}=0`$. The condition for a local minimum with $`H_2^+=0`$ is equivalent to a positive square mass for the charged Higgs boson. The VEVs of the neutral Higgs fields have the general form

$$H_1^0=v_1e^{i\phi _1},H_2^0=v_2e^{i\phi _2},N=xe^{i\phi _3},$$
(2.5)
where $`v_1,v_2,x`$ are positive and $`\phi _1,\phi _2,\phi _3`$ are CP violating phases. However, only two of these phases are physical. They can be chosen as

$$\theta =\phi _1+\phi _2+\phi _3\mathrm{and}\delta =3\phi _3.$$
(2.6)
### 2.2 Minimization of the tree level potential

From the tree level scalar potential in Eqs. (2.3, 2.1), one can derive the five minimization equations for the VEVs and phases $`v_1,v_2,x,\theta ,\delta `$. They can be used to express the soft parameters $`m_{H_1},m_{H_2}`$, $`m_N,A_\lambda ,A_\kappa `$ in terms of $`v_1,v_2,x,\theta ,\delta `$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{V_{\mathrm{tree}}}{v_1}}=0m_{H_1}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\left(x^2+v^2\mathrm{sin}^2\beta \right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M_Z^2\mathrm{cos}2\beta `$
$`\lambda x\mathrm{tan}\beta \left(\kappa x\mathrm{cos}(\theta \delta )+A_\lambda \mathrm{cos}\theta \right),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{V_{\mathrm{tree}}}{v_2}}=0m_{H_2}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\left(x^2+v^2\mathrm{cos}^2\beta \right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M_Z^2\mathrm{cos}2\beta `$
$`\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta \left(\kappa x\mathrm{cos}(\theta \delta )+A_\lambda \mathrm{cos}\theta \right),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{V_{\mathrm{tree}}}{x}}=0m_N^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2v^22\kappa ^2x^2\lambda \kappa v^2\mathrm{sin}2\beta \mathrm{cos}(\theta \delta )`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda A_\lambda v^2}{2x}}\mathrm{sin}2\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta \kappa A_\kappa x\mathrm{cos}\delta +{\displaystyle \frac{\xi ^3}{x}}\mathrm{cos}(\delta /3),`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{V_{\mathrm{tree}}}{\theta }}=0A_\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa x\mathrm{sin}(\theta \delta )}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{V_{\mathrm{tree}}}{\delta }}=0A_\kappa `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\lambda \kappa xv^2\mathrm{sin}2\beta \mathrm{sin}(\theta \delta )+2\xi ^3\mathrm{sin}(\delta /3)}{2\kappa x^2\mathrm{sin}\delta }},`$
with $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =v_2/v_1`$, $`v=\sqrt{v_1^2+v_2^2}=174\mathrm{GeV}`$ and $`M_Z`$ the $`Z`$ boson mass. The above relations allow us to use $`\mathrm{tan}\beta ,x,\theta `$ and $`\delta `$ instead of $`m_{H_1},m_{H_2},m_N,A_\lambda ,A_\kappa `$ as free parameters.

Once EW symmetry is spontaneously broken, we are left with five neutral Higgs states and a pair of charged Higgs states. The neutral Higgs fields can be rewritten in terms of CP eigenstates

$`H_1^0`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\phi _1}\left\{v_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(S_1+i\mathrm{sin}\beta P)\right\},`$
$`H_2^0`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\phi _2}\left\{v_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(S_2+i\mathrm{cos}\beta P)\right\},`$ (2.8)
$`N`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\phi _3}\left\{x+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(X+iY)\right\},`$
where $`S_1,S_2,X`$ are the CP-even components, and $`P,Y`$ are the CP-odd components. Note that we have rotated away the CP-odd would-be Goldstone boson associated with the EW symmetry breaking. The mass matrix for the neutral Higgs bosons in the basis $`(S_1,S_2,X,P,Y)`$ can be easily obtained:

$`M_{11}^2`$ $`=`$ $`M_Z^2\mathrm{cos}^2\beta {\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \kappa x^2\mathrm{tan}\beta \mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}`$
$`M_{22}^2`$ $`=`$ $`M_Z^2\mathrm{sin}^2\beta {\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \kappa x^2\mathrm{cot}\beta \mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}`$
$`M_{33}^2`$ $`=`$ $`4\kappa ^2x^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda \kappa v^2\mathrm{sin}2\beta \mathrm{sin}(\theta \delta )\left(\mathrm{cot}\theta +3\mathrm{cot}\delta \right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\xi ^3}{x}}\left(\mathrm{sin}(\delta /3)\mathrm{cot}\delta +\mathrm{cos}(\delta /3)\right)`$
$`M_{44}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda \kappa x^2\mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}2\beta \mathrm{sin}\theta }}`$
$`M_{55}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda \kappa v^2\mathrm{sin}2\beta \left(6\mathrm{cos}(\theta \delta )9{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\theta }{\mathrm{sin}\delta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\xi ^3}{x}}\left(\mathrm{cos}(\delta /3)3\mathrm{sin}(\delta /3)\mathrm{cot}\delta \right)`$
$`M_{12}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\lambda ^2v^2{\displaystyle \frac{M_Z^2}{2}}\right)\mathrm{sin}2\beta +{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \kappa x^2\mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}`$
$`M_{13}^2`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda ^2xv\mathrm{cos}\beta +\lambda \kappa xv\mathrm{sin}\beta \left(\mathrm{cos}(\theta \delta )+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}\right)`$ (2.9)
$`M_{14}^2`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`M_{15}^2`$ $`=`$ $`3\lambda \kappa xv\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{sin}(\theta \delta )`$
$`M_{23}^2`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda ^2xv\mathrm{sin}\beta +\lambda \kappa xv\mathrm{cos}\beta \left(\mathrm{cos}(\theta \delta )+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}\right)`$
$`M_{24}^2`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`M_{25}^2`$ $`=`$ $`3\lambda \kappa xv\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{sin}(\theta \delta )`$
$`M_{34}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda \kappa xv\mathrm{sin}(\theta \delta )`$
$`M_{35}^2`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda \kappa v^2\mathrm{sin}2\beta \mathrm{sin}(\theta \delta )`$
$`M_{45}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda \kappa xv\left(\mathrm{cos}(\theta \delta )+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}\right)`$
where we made use of the minimization conditions in Eq. (2.2) to eliminate the soft terms and simplify the expressions. One can note that $`M_{14}^2=M_{24}^2=0`$, which means that there is no CP violation in the Higgs doublet sector. On the other hand, CP violating mixings between the singlet and the doublets can appear, as long as $`\theta \delta `$. It is easy to see from Eq. (2.2) that, if $`\xi 0`$, one can evade the NMSSM no-go theorem for SCPV: it was shown in  that the tree level mass matrix for the neutral Higgs bosons always had one negative eigenvalue in the case of non-trivial phases of the VEVs. However, in our case the negative eigenvalue can be lifted up to a positive value provided $`\xi `$ is large enough, due to the additional diagonal terms proportional to $`\xi ^3`$ in $`M_{33}^2`$ and $`M_{55}^2`$. Hence, SCPV is possible already at tree level for $`\xi 0`$. We will check this numerically in section 3, taking into account radiative corrections as well as experimental constraints on the Higgs boson masses.

### 2.3 Radiative corrections

It is well known that one loop radiative corrections can give large contributions to the Higgs boson masses in the MSSM  as well as in the NMSSM . Furthermore, they play a crucial role in the SCPV mechanism , as they generate CP violating operators. In what follows, we shall only consider radiative corrections due to top-stop loops. The one loop effective potential reads

$$V_{1\mathrm{loop}}=\frac{3}{32\pi ^2}\left\{_{\stackrel{~}{t}_i}^4\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{_{\stackrel{~}{t}_i}^2}{Q^2}\frac{3}{2}\right)2_t^4\left(\mathrm{log}\frac{_t^2}{Q^2}\frac{3}{2}\right)\right\}.$$
(2.10)
$`_t^2`$ and $`_{\stackrel{~}{t}_i}^2,(i=1,2)`$ are the field dependent top and stop squared masses respectively, and $`Q`$ is the renormalization scale, at which all the parameters are evaluated. $`Q`$ has to be of the order of the soft SUSY breaking parameters so that the tree level scalar potential has the supersymmetric form of Eq. (2.1). The field dependent stop mass matrix, in the basis $`(T_L,T_R^c)`$, is given by

$$_{\stackrel{~}{t}}^2=\left[\begin{array}{cc}m_Q^2+h_t^2|H_2^0|^2& h_t(A_tH_2^0+\lambda H_1^0N)\\ h_t(A_tH_2^0+\lambda H_1^0N^{})& m_T^2+h_t^2|H_2^0|^2\end{array}\right],$$
(2.11)
with $`h_t`$ the top Yukawa coupling and $`m_Q,m_T,A_t`$ the soft terms for the stop sector. In the following, we assume $`m_Q=m_TM_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$, as this choice maximizes the radiative corrections to the lightest Higgs boson mass. $`D`$ terms are not taken into account since we do not consider radiative corrections proportional to the gauge couplings. At the minimum of the potential, the top-stop masses are given by

$`m_t^2`$ $`=`$ $`h_t^2v^2\mathrm{sin}^2\beta ,`$
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1,\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2`$ $`=`$ $`M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}+m_t^2m_tX_t,`$ (2.12)
where

$$X_t=\sqrt{A_t^2+\lambda ^2x^2\mathrm{cot}^2\beta +2A_t\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta }$$
(2.13)
is the usual stop mixing parameter. This is not different from the CP conserving case, up to the phase $`\theta `$ appearing in $`X_t`$. One can show that radiative corrections to the Higgs boson masses are minimized for $`X_t=0`$ (minimal mixing scenario) and maximized for $`X_t=\sqrt{6}M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ (maximal mixing scenario). However, in our case it is not possible to take $`X_t=0`$. In fact, the minimum of $`X_t`$ is $`X_t=\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta |\mathrm{sin}\theta |`$ for $`A_t=\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta `$. On the other hand, $`X_t=\sqrt{6}M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ is only possible if $`\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta |\mathrm{sin}\theta |<\sqrt{6}M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$. If this is not the case, then the maximal mixing scenario is obtained for $`X_t=\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta |\mathrm{sin}\theta |`$ and $`A_t=\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta `$ as in the minimum mixing case.

The one loop terms give additional contributions to the minimization conditions of Eq. (2.2). In particular, since $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_i}^2`$ depends on the CP violating phase $`\theta `$, the relation that gives $`A_\lambda `$ as a function of the VEVs and phases of the Higgs fields is no longer valid. Moreover, as noted before, the tree level minimization equations were used to simplify the Higgs boson mass matrix elements at tree level. Nevertheless, it is possible to keep the tree level mass matrix elements as in Eq. (2.2) and write all the one loop contributions as additional terms in the Higgs boson mass matrix

$$M_{ij}^2M_{ij}^2+\frac{3h_t^2m_t^2}{8\pi ^2}\delta M_{ij}^2.$$
(2.14)
One then obtains

$`\delta M_{11}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2x^2\mathrm{\Delta }_1^2f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{22}^2`$ $`=`$ $`A_t^2\mathrm{\Delta }_2^2f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})+2A_t\mathrm{\Delta }_2g(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})+\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2}{m_t^4}}`$
$`\delta M_{33}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2v^2\mathrm{cos}^2\beta \mathrm{\Delta }_1^2f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{44}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2x^2A_t^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{\mathrm{sin}^2\beta }}f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{55}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2v^2\mathrm{cos}^2\beta A_t^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{12}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda xA_t\mathrm{\Delta }_1\mathrm{\Delta }_2f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})+\lambda x\mathrm{\Delta }_1g(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{13}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2xv\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{\Delta }_1^2f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2xv\mathrm{cos}\beta }{m_t^2}}h(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$ (2.15)
$`\delta M_{14}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2x^2A_t\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{\Delta }_1}{\mathrm{sin}\beta }}f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{15}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2xv\mathrm{cos}\beta A_t\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{\Delta }_1f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{23}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda v\mathrm{cos}\beta A_t\mathrm{\Delta }_1\mathrm{\Delta }_2f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})+\lambda v\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{\Delta }_1g(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{24}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda xA_t^2\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{\Delta }_2}{\mathrm{sin}\beta }}f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}){\displaystyle \frac{\lambda xA_t\mathrm{sin}\theta }{\mathrm{sin}\beta }}g(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{25}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda v\mathrm{cos}\beta A_t^2\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{\Delta }_2f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})\lambda v\mathrm{cos}\beta A_t\mathrm{sin}\theta g(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{34}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2xv\mathrm{cos}\beta A_t\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{\Delta }_1}{\mathrm{sin}\beta }}f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{35}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2v^2\mathrm{cos}^2\beta A_t\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{\Delta }_1f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
$`\delta M_{45}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2xv\mathrm{cos}\beta A_t^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{\mathrm{sin}\beta }}f(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$
where

$`f(m_1,m_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(m_2^2m_1^2)^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_1^2+m_2^2}{m_2^2m_1^2}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_2^2}{m_1^2}}2\right),`$
$`g(m_1,m_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_2^2m_1^2}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_2^2}{m_1^2}},`$ (2.16)
$`h(m_1,m_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_2^2m_1^2}}\left[m_2^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_2^2}{Q^2}}m_1^2\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_1^2}{Q^2}}\right]1,`$
and

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_1=A_t\mathrm{cos}\theta +\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta ,\mathrm{\Delta }_2=A_t\mathrm{cos}\theta +\lambda x\mathrm{cot}\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta .$$
(2.17)
One can notice that, apart from a sub-leading term in $`\delta M_{13}^2`$, all the scale dependence is hidden in the parameters scale dependence. The one loop terms of the neutral Higgs boson mass matrix in Eq.(2.3) differ from those given in Ref. , where one loop minimization conditions were not used to simplify the expressions.

Two loop corrections can also give substantial contributions to the Higgs boson masses . Our analysis follows closely the results of , to which we refer the reader for more details. Here, we consider the dominant two loop corrections which are proportional to $`\alpha _sh_t^4`$ and $`h_t^6`$, taking only the leading logarithms (LLs) into account. In this approximation, the two loop effective potential reads

$$V_{2\mathrm{loops}}^{\mathrm{LL}}=3\left(\frac{h_t^2}{16\pi ^2}\right)^2\left(32\pi \alpha _s\frac{3}{2}h_t^2\right)v^4\mathrm{sin}^4\beta \mathrm{log}^2\frac{m_t^2}{Q^2}.$$
(2.18)
One loop corrections to the tree level relations between bare parameters and physical observables, once reinserted in the one loop potential of Eq. (2.10), also appear as two loop effects. The dominant contributions are:

(ı) corrections to the kinetic terms of the Higgs bosons, which lead to a wave function renormalization factor $`Z_{H_2^0}`$ given by

$$Z_{H_2^0}=13\frac{h_t^2}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{log}\frac{m_t^2}{Q^2}.$$
(2.19)
(ıı) Corrections to the top quark Yukawa coupling

$$h_t(m_t)=h_t(Q)\left(1+\frac{1}{32\pi ^2}\left(\frac{9}{2}h_t^232\pi \alpha _s\right)\mathrm{log}\frac{m_t^2}{Q^2}\right).$$
(2.20)
The top quark running mass is then given by $`m_t(m_t)=h_t(m_t)Z_{H_2^0}^{1/2}v\mathrm{sin}\beta `$ and the relation between the pole and running masses is, up to order $`\alpha _s`$, $`m_t^{\mathrm{pole}}=(1+\frac{4\alpha _s}{3\pi })m_t(m_t)`$. Similarly, the relation between the stop pole and running masses is given by $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_i}^{\mathrm{pole}}=(1+\frac{8\alpha _s}{3\pi })m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_i}(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_i})`$.

Once all these contributions are taken into account, one obtains a rather complicated $`5\times 5`$ mass matrix for the neutral Higgs fields, which can only be numerically diagonalized (cf. section 3).

### 2.4 Charged Higgs boson mass

Finally, we give the expression for the charged Higgs boson mass, which at tree level is given by

$$m_{H^\pm }^2=M_W^2\lambda ^2v^2\frac{2\lambda \kappa x^2\mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}2\beta \mathrm{sin}\theta }.$$
(2.21)
The radiative corrections due to top-bottom and stop-sbottom loops read

$$\delta m_{H^\pm }^2=\frac{3h_t^2}{8\pi ^2}\frac{\lambda xA_t\mathrm{cos}\theta }{\mathrm{sin}2\beta }h(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})+\delta _r,$$
(2.22)
where $`h(m_1,m_2)`$ has been defined in Eq. (2.3) and $`\delta _r`$ contains the scale independent terms

$`\delta _r`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3h_t^2m_t^2}{32\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2x^2}{\mathrm{sin}^2\beta }}[{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_L}^2}{(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_L}^2)(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_L}^2)}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2}{m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_L}^4}}`$ (2.23)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2}}({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2}{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_L}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2}{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_L}^2}})\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2}{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2}}]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3h_t^2}{16\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2x^2v^2}{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2+m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2}}.`$
In the above, we have assumed that the bottom Yukawa coupling is small enough to be neglected, as justified by our choice of parameters, namely a low $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ regime. Therefore bottom squarks $`\stackrel{~}{b}_L`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{b}_R`$ do not mix and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{b}_L}=m_QM_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$. It is interesting to note that the term proportional to $`h(m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1},m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2})`$ in Eq. (2.22) exactly cancels the one loop correction to $`A_\lambda `$ due to the minimization equation of $`V_{1\mathrm{loop}}`$ as a function of $`\theta `$. Hence, if one replaces $`A_\lambda `$ by a function of the VEVs and phases of the Higgs fields, one can simply rewrite the charged Higgs boson mass as

$$m_{H^\pm }^2M_W^2\lambda ^2v^2\frac{2\lambda \kappa x^2\mathrm{sin}\delta }{\mathrm{sin}2\beta \mathrm{sin}\theta }\frac{3h_t^2}{16\pi ^2}\frac{\lambda ^2x^2v^2}{m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_1}^2+m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_2}^2}.$$
(2.24)
## 3 Mass spectrum

In this section we investigate whether it is possible to have SCPV in the NMSSM with the extra tadpole term for the singlet, given the exclusion limits on the Higgs boson spectrum from LEP . In order to do so, we perform a numerical scanning of the parameter space of the model. The parameters appearing in the tree level Higgs boson mass matrix are $`\lambda ,\kappa ,A_\lambda ,A_k,m_{H_1},m_{H_2},m_N,\xi `$. As seen in the previous section, we can use the minimization conditions of Eq. (2.2) to replace the soft SUSY breaking terms by the VEVs and phases of the Higgs fields. In the following, we will use the effective $`\mu `$ term defined in Eq. (2.2) as a free parameter instead of the singlet VEV $`x`$, so that the free parameters of the tree level Higgs boson mass matrix are now given by

$$\lambda ,\kappa ,\mathrm{tan}\beta ,\mu ,\xi ,\theta ,\delta .$$
(3.1)
Requiring the absence of Landau singularities for $`\lambda `$ and $`\kappa `$ below the GUT scale ($`M_{\mathrm{G}UT}2\times 10^{16}\mathrm{GeV}`$) imposes upper bounds on these couplings at the weak scale, which depend on the value of $`h_t`$, i.e. of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ and the top mass . For $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 10`$ and $`m_t^{\mathrm{pole}}=175\mathrm{GeV}`$, one finds $`\lambda _{\mathrm{max}}0.65`$ and $`\kappa _{\mathrm{max}}0.6`$. This also yields a lower bound for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, namely $`\mathrm{tan}\beta >2.2`$. Regarding the radiative corrections, we take $`M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}=350\mathrm{GeV}`$ and assume the maximal mixing scenario for the stops, i.e. $`X_t=\mathrm{max}(\sqrt{6}M_{\mathrm{SUSY}},\mu \mathrm{cot}\beta |\mathrm{sin}\theta |)`$. The relatively small value for $`M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ will be justified in the following section when we address the computation of $`\epsilon _K`$.

We have performed a numerical scanning on the free parameters, which were randomly chosen in the following intervals:

$`0.01<\lambda <0.65,0.01<\kappa <0.6,2.2<\mathrm{tan}\beta <10,`$
$`100\mathrm{GeV}<\mu <500\mathrm{GeV},0<\xi <1\mathrm{TeV},`$ (3.2)
$`\pi <\theta <\pi ,\pi <\delta <\pi .`$
For each point, we computed the Higgs boson masses and couplings by diagonalizing the $`5\times 5`$ Higgs boson mass matrix, which was calculated taking into account radiative corrections up to the dominant two loop terms, as described in the previous section. The five mass eigenstates are denoted by $`h_i,i=\mathrm{1..5}`$ with masses $`m_i`$ in increasing order. We also computed the charged Higgs boson mass, the stop and the chargino masses, and applied all the available experimental constraints on these particles from LEP , as discussed below.

The first important result is that we have succeeded in obtaining a large number of points that complied with all the imposed constraints for any values of the CP violating phases $`\theta `$ and $`\delta `$, i.e. it is possible to have SCPV in the NMSSM. For this result to be valid, the presence of the extra tadpole term $`\xi `$ is crucial. This is easily understood from the fact that in the limit where $`\xi `$ goes to zero, SCPV is no longer possible at tree level , and although viable when radiative corrections are included, the Georgi-Pais theorem  predicts the appearance of light Higgs states in the spectrum, already excluded by LEP. However, when $`\xi 0`$, CP can be spontaneously broken at tree level, as noted in the previous section. In Fig. 1 we display the mass of the lightest Higgs boson, $`m_1`$, as a function of the tadpole parameter $`\xi `$, with the other parameters randomly chosen as in Eq. (3), for a set of approximately $`10^4`$ points. We can see that small values of $`\xi `$ are associated with a very light mass for the $`h_1`$ state. Such light Higgs states are not excluded by current experimental bounds as long as their reduced coupling to the gauge bosons is small enough. Indeed, the LEP exclusion limits on Higgs boson production gives an upper bound on the reduced coupling of a Higgs boson to the gauge bosons as a function of its mass. The reduced coupling $`R_i`$ is defined as the coupling $`ZZh_i`$, divided by the corresponding Standard Model coupling:

$$R_i=h_{i1}\mathrm{cos}\beta +h_{i2}\mathrm{sin}\beta ,$$
(3.3)
where $`h_{i1},h_{i2}`$ are the $`S_1,S_2`$ components of the Higgs state $`h_i`$, respectively. One has $`0<|R_1|<1`$ and unitarity implies

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{5}{}}R_i^2=1.$$
(3.4)
In Fig. 2 we plot the square of the reduced coupling of the lightest Higgs state, $`R_1^2`$, versus $`m_1`$ for the same set of points as in Fig. 1. We also display the LEP exclusion curve , from which one can see that the light $`h_1`$ states are indeed not excluded. The presence of a light Higgs state with a small reduced coupling to the SM gauge bosons might prove difficult to detect at future colliders. However, it is worth stressing that in our results we always have at least one light visible Higgs state with a large reduced coupling to the gauge bosons ($`R_i^2>0.5`$) and a mass in the interval $`112\mathrm{GeV}<m_i<150\mathrm{GeV}`$. The lower bound is fixed by the LEP limit as shown in Fig. 2. The upper bound can be understood from the following relation

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{5}{}}R_i^2m_i^2=\mathrm{cos}^2\beta M_{11}^2+2\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{sin}\beta M_{12}^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\beta M_{22}^2,$$
(3.5)
where $`M_{11}^2,M_{12}^2,M_{22}^2`$ are the Higgs boson mass matrix elements as given in the previous section. The right hand side of Eq. (3.5) gives the usual NMSSM upper bound on the lightest Higgs boson mass , with the only difference being that the stop mixing parameter $`X_t`$ now depends on the CP violating phase $`\theta `$, as seen in Eq. (2.13).

Assuming $`m_t^{\mathrm{p}ole}=175\mathrm{GeV}`$, $`M_{\mathrm{S}USY}=350\mathrm{GeV}`$ and maximal stop mixing, one obtains $`m_1<125\mathrm{GeV}`$ with this upper bound being saturated for small $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, namely $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 2.7`$ . One can check from Figs. 1 and 2 that this upper bound is only reached by a few points in our set. The dense band of points in Fig. 1 corresponds to cases where $`h_1`$ is a SM-like Higgs state with $`R_11`$. In this case, the lower bound from LEP is $`m_1>114\mathrm{GeV}`$ and the upper bound, from Eq. (3.5), is $`m_1<125\mathrm{GeV}`$ as explained above.

We have also applied the exclusion limit from LEP on Higgs bosons associated production ($`e^+e^{}hA`$ in the MSSM). This provides an upper bound on the $`Zh_ih_j`$ reduced coupling as a function of $`m_i+m_j`$ for $`m_im_j`$ . The $`Zh_ih_j`$ reduced coupling is the equivalent of $`\mathrm{cos}(\beta \alpha )`$ in the MSSM and is here defined as

$$R_{ij}^{}=h_{i4}(h_{j2}\mathrm{cos}\beta h_{j1}\mathrm{sin}\beta )(ij),$$
(3.6)
with $`h_{i4}`$ the CP-odd doublet $`P`$ component of $`h_i`$. We have also taken into account the LEP limit on the charged Higgs boson mass , which here simply reads $`m_{H^\pm }>89.6\mathrm{GeV}`$. By inspection of Eq. (2.24), this limit translates into having opposite signs for the phases $`\theta `$ and $`\delta `$.

As we will see in the next section, charginos play an important role in the computation of $`\epsilon _K`$. The tree level chargino mass matrix in the $`(\stackrel{~}{W},\stackrel{~}{H})`$ basis reads

$$_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }^\pm }=\left(\begin{array}{cc}M_2& \sqrt{2}M_W\mathrm{sin}\beta e^{i\theta }\\ \sqrt{2}M_W\mathrm{cos}\beta & \lambda x\end{array}\right),$$
(3.7)
where $`M_2`$ is the soft wino mass. We randomly scanned in the following interval for $`M_2`$

$$100\mathrm{GeV}<M_2<250\mathrm{GeV}$$
(3.8)
and applied the LEP bound on the chargino mass, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{1,2}^\pm }>103.5\mathrm{GeV}`$ . Finally, we checked that for each point the stop masses also satisfied the associated LEP limit $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}_{1,2}}>100\mathrm{GeV}`$ .

## 4 Indirect CP violation in $`K^0\overline{K}^0`$ mixing

In the framework of the NMSSM with SCPV, all the SUSY parameters are real. Even so, the physical phases of the Higgs doublets and singlet appear in the scalar fermion, chargino and neutralino mass matrices, as well as in several interaction vertices. In this section we will explore whether or not these physical phases can account for the experimental value of $`\epsilon _K`$, $`\epsilon _K=(2.271\pm 0.017)\times 10^3`$ .

It is worth stressing that in this scenario the SM does not provide any contribution to the CP violating observables, since the CKM matrix is real. This can be clarified by noting that since $`N`$ is a singlet field, it does not couple to the quarks, and although both Higgs doublets do couple, the phase associated with these couplings can be rotated away by means of a redefinition of the right-handed quark fields. Since charged currents are purely left-handed, these phases do not show up in the $`V_{\mathrm{CKM}}`$, which is thus real.

Let us now proceed to compute the contributions to the indirect CP violation parameter of the kaon sector, which is defined as

$$\epsilon _K\frac{e^{i\pi /4}}{\sqrt{2}}\frac{\mathrm{Im}_{12}}{\mathrm{\Delta }m_K}.$$
(4.1)
In the latter $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_K`$ is the long- and short-lived kaon mass difference, and $`_{12}`$ is the off-diagonal element of the neutral kaon mass matrix, which is related to the effective hamiltonian that governs $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=2`$ transitions as

$$_{12}=\frac{K^0|_{\text{eff}}^{\mathrm{\Delta }S=2}|\overline{K}^0}{2m_K},\text{with}_{\text{eff}}^{\mathrm{\Delta }S=2}=\underset{i}{}c_i𝒪_i.$$
(4.2)
Here $`c_i`$ are the Wilson coefficients and $`𝒪_i`$ the local operators. In the presence of SUSY contributions, the Wilson coefficients can be decomposed as $`c_i=c_i^W+c_i^{H^\pm }+c_i^{\stackrel{~}{\chi }^\pm }+c_i^{\stackrel{~}{g}}+c_i^{\stackrel{~}{\chi }^0}`$. As discussed in , in the present class of models where there are no contributions from the SM, the chargino mediated box diagrams give the leading supersymmetric contribution, and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=2`$ transition is largely dominated by the $`(VA)`$ four fermion operator $`𝒪_1`$. Working in the weak basis for the $`\stackrel{~}{W}\stackrel{~}{H}`$, rather than in the physical chargino basis, and using the mass insertion approximation for the internal squarks, we have verified that the $`\epsilon _K`$ receives the leading contribution from the box diagrams depicted in Fig. 3. In the limit of degenerate masses for the left-handed up-squarks, $`\mathrm{Im}_{12}`$ is given by

$`\mathrm{Im}_{12}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2G_F^2f_K^2m_Km_W^4}{3\pi ^2m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}^8}}(V_{td}^{}V_{ts})m_t^2\left|e^{i\theta }m_{\stackrel{~}{W}}\mathrm{cot}\beta m_{\stackrel{~}{H}}\right|`$ (4.3)
$`\times \left\{\mathrm{\Delta }A_U\mathrm{sin}[\phi _\chi \theta ](M_{\stackrel{~}{Q}}^2)_{12}I(r_{\stackrel{~}{W}},r_{\stackrel{~}{H}},r_{\stackrel{~}{u}_L},r_{\stackrel{~}{t}_R})\right\}.`$
In the above equation, $`f_K`$ is the kaon decay constant and $`m_K`$ the kaon mass ; $`V_{ij}`$ are the $`V_{\mathrm{CKM}}`$ elements, whose numerical values ($`V_{td}=0.0066`$ and $`V_{ts}=0.04`$) reflect the fact that we are dealing with a flat unitarity triangle; $`m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}`$ is the average squark mass, which we take equal to $`M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$; $`m_{\stackrel{~}{W}}=M_2`$ is the wino mass, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{H}}=\mu `$ is the higgsino mass and $`\phi _\chi =\mathrm{arg}(e^{i\theta }m_{\stackrel{~}{W}}\mathrm{cot}\beta m_{\stackrel{~}{H}})`$<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Our conventions differ from Ref.  in that $`\mu _{eff}\mu `$.. The non-universality in the $`LL`$ soft breaking masses is parametrized by $`(M_{\stackrel{~}{Q}}^2)_{12}`$, which we choose taking into account the bounds from the analysis in Ref. . As discussed in Ref. , a sizable non-universality in the soft trilinear terms is crucial, and is here parametrized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_UA_U^{13}A_U^{23}`$. In the following, we assume $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_U=500\mathrm{GeV}`$. Finally, $`I`$ is the loop function, with $`r_i=m_i^2/m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}^2`$ .

By scanning the parameter space of the model, we have verified that one can find sets of parameters that satisfy the minimization conditions of the Higgs potential, have an associated Higgs boson spectrum compatible with LEP searches and still succeed in generating the observed value of $`\epsilon _K`$. From Eq. (4.3), it appears that $`\epsilon _K`$ depends on $`1/M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}^8`$. It is therefore difficult to saturate the experimental value of $`\epsilon _K`$ for large values of $`M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$. On the other hand, too small values of $`M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ might generate a light Higgs boson spectrum, already excluded by LEP. In order to accommodate both constraints, we took $`M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}=350\mathrm{GeV}`$, as already referred to in section 3. All other parameters are as in Eqs. (3, 3.8) and we assumed $`m_t^{\mathrm{pole}}=175\mathrm{GeV}`$ and maximal stop mixing, as in the previous section.

In Fig. 4, we plot the possible values of $`\epsilon _K`$ as a function of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. The maximal values of $`\epsilon _K`$ are obtained for the low $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ regime, and the experimental bounds on $`\epsilon _K`$ require $`\mathrm{tan}\beta <3.8`$. Recall that the lower bound for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is consistent with the analysis conducted in section 3. Apart from the explicit dependence of Eq. (4.3) on $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, one should bear in mind that there are also implicit dependences associated with the other parameters as well as with the various experimental bounds imposed on the mass spectrum. It is therefore difficult to reproduce analytically the observed upper bound on $`\epsilon _K`$ as a function of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$.

In Fig. 5, we plot the maximal value of $`\epsilon _K`$ in distinct regions of the $`\lambda \kappa `$ plane. The remaining parameters are chosen in order to maximize $`\epsilon _K`$ and still comply with the experimental bounds. As one can see from this figure, having $`\epsilon _K2\times 10^3`$ is associated with values of $`\kappa `$ and $`\lambda `$ in the range $`[0,0.6]`$. In other words, one can easily saturate $`\epsilon _K`$ in a vast region of the parameter space.

As expected from the inspection of Eq. (4.3), there is a strong dependence of $`\epsilon _K`$ on the phases associated with the Higgs fields. In Fig. 6, we display contour plots for the maximal values of $`\epsilon _K`$ in the plane generated by the phases $`\theta `$ and $`\delta `$. Although, a priori, all the values for the phases $`\theta `$ and $`\delta `$ in $`[\pi ,\pi ]`$ are allowed, it is clear from Fig. 6 that the saturation of the experimental value of $`\epsilon _K`$ can only be achieved for significant values of the singlet and doublet phases. This feature becomes more evident in Fig. 7, where we show the values of $`\epsilon _K`$ as a function of the singlet phase, $`\phi _3=\delta /3`$. The saturation of the experimental value of $`\epsilon _K`$ requires the singlet phase to be $`|\phi _3|0.15`$. We will discuss in the conclusions the implications of such large CP violating phases.

## 5 Conclusions and discussion

We have shown that in the framework of the NMSSM with an extra tadpole term for the singlet in the scalar potential, it is possible to have spontaneous CP violation while complying with the LEP constraints on the Higgs boson mass. Although in this scenario $`V_{\mathrm{CKM}}`$ is real, the experimental value of $`\epsilon _K`$ can be saturated in large parts of the parameter space of the model, without requiring any fine tuning. This may be of special interest for electroweak baryogenesis, as it has been shown that a strong first order electroweak phase transition is possible in the NMSSM, as opposed to the MSSM, due to the additional trilinear Higgs boson couplings in the lagrangian .

The presence of the extra tadpole term $`\xi `$ is crucial to conciliate spontaneous CP violation with the LEP constraints on the Higgs boson mass. Moreover, the $`\xi `$ term also solves the domain wall problem associated with the spontaneous breaking of the $`_3`$ symmetry, which is present if $`\xi =0`$. On the other hand, since CP is spontaneously broken at the electroweak scale, CP domain walls may appear, which are cosmologically excluded. An elegant solution to this problem, along the lines of the $`_3`$ domain walls solution, is to assume that gravitational interactions also explicitly break CP. In the low energy scalar potential, one then obtains an explicit CP violating tadpole term, i.e. a complex $`\xi `$ term. A phase in the $`\xi `$ term would not change the results derived here, since its only effect is to generate a shift in the singlet phase $`\delta `$.

Regarding the large phase regime favoured by the saturation of $`\epsilon _K`$, one should recall that $`\theta `$ and $`\delta `$ are flavour-conserving phases, and might generate sizable contributions to the electron, neutron and mercury atom EDMs. Although we will not address the EDM problem here, a few remarks are in order: first, let us notice that in the presence of a small singlet coupling $`\lambda `$, as allowed in our results (see Fig. 5), the EDM constraints on $`\delta `$ become less stringent . In addition, there are several possible ways to evade the EDM problem, namely reinforcing the non-universality on the trilinear terms (i.e. requiring the diagonal terms to be much smaller than the off-diagonal ones or having matrix-factorizable $`A`$ terms), the existence of cancellations between the several SUSY contributions, and the suppression of the EDMs by a heavy SUSY spectrum . In view of the considerably large parameter space allowed in our results, none of these possibilities should be disregarded.

Concerning the other CP-violating observables, namely $`\epsilon ^{}/\epsilon `$ and the CP asymmetry of the $`B_d`$ meson decay ($`a_{J/\psi K_S}`$), it has been pointed out that this class of models can generate sizable contributions, although saturating the experimental values generally favours a regime of large phases and maximal $`LR`$ squark mixing . A complete analysis of these issues, as well as of the EDM problem in our model has yet to be done.

In this work, we pointed out that the NMSSM with an extra tadpole term in the scalar potential appears to be an excellent candidate for a scenario of SCPV. Having a $`_3`$ invariant superpotential preserves the original motivation of the NMSSM to solve the $`\mu `$ problem of supersymmetry. The extra tadpole term for the singlet cures the domain wall problem of the $`_3`$ invariant model and allows the spontaneous breaking of CP. In this model, one can simultaneously saturate $`\epsilon _K`$ and obtain a particle spectrum compatible with the current experimental bounds.

The presently available experimental data on CP violation does not allow to distinguish whether the CP symmetry is spontaneously or explicitly broken. With the advent of the LHC and eventually of the Linear Collider, direct searches of the Higgs bosons, and the measurement the associated couplings to the SM gauge bosons, will allow to disentangle this model from the MSSM.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Spanish grant BFM2002-00345 and by the European Commission RTN grant HPRN-CT-2000-00148. A. T. was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia under the grant SFRH/BPD/11509/2002. J.C.R. was partly supported by the Marie Curie fellowship HPMF-CT-2002-01902.