The Supersymmetric Standard Model

The Standard Model may be included within a supersymmetric theory, postulating new sparticles that differ by half-a-unit of spin from their standard model partners, and by a new quantum number called R-parity. The lightest one, usually a neutralino, is expected to be stable and a possible candidate for dark matter. The electroweak breaking requires two doublets, leading to several charged and neutral Brout- Englert-Higgs bosons. This also leads to gauge/Higgs unification by providing extra spin-0 partners for the spin-1 W$^\pm$ and Z. It offers the possibility to view, up to a mixing angle, the new 125 GeV boson as the spin-0 partner of the Z under two supersymmetry transformations, i.e. as a Z that would be deprived of its spin. Supersymmetry then relates two existing particles of different spins, in spite of their different gauge symmetry properties, through supersymmetry transformations acting on physical fields in a non-polynomial way. We also discuss how the compactification of extra dimensions, relying on R-parity and other discrete symmetries, may determine both the supersymmetry-breaking and grand-unification scale