  Fine-tuning criteria are frequently used to place upper limits on the masses
of superpartners in supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. However,
commonly used prescriptions for quantifying naturalness have some important
shortcomings. Motivated by this, we propose new criteria for quantifying fine
tuning that can be used to place upper limits on superpartner masses with
greater fidelity. In addition, our analysis attempts to make explicit the
assumptions implicit in quantifications of naturalness. We apply our criteria
to the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model, and we find that
the scale of supersymmetry breaking can be larger than previous methods
indicate.
