LAUSR

QCD is not supersymmetrical in the traditional sense—the QCD Lagrangian is based on quark and gluonic fields, not squarks nor gluinos. However, its hadronic eigensolutions conform to a representation of superconformal algebra, reflecting the underlying conformal symmetry of chiral QCD and its Pauli matrix representation. The eigensolutions of superconformal algebra provide a unified Regge spectroscopy of meson, baryon, and tetraquarks of the same parity and twist as equal-mass members of the same 4-plet representation with a universal Regge slope. The pion $$q \bar{q}$$qq¯ eigenstate has zero mass for $$m_q=0.$$mq=0. The superconformal relations also can be extended to heavy-light quark mesons and baryons. The combined approach of light-front holography and superconformal algebra also provides insight into the origin of the QCD mass scale and color confinement. A key observation is the remarkable dAFF principle which shows how a mass scale can appear in the Hamiltonian and the equations of motion while retaining the conformal symmetry of the action. When one applies the dAFF procedure to chiral QCD, a mass scale $$\kappa $$κ appears which determines universal Regge slopes, hadron masses in the absence of the Higgs coupling, and the mass parameter underlying the Gaussian functional form of the nonperturbative QCD running coupling: $$\alpha _s(Q^2) \propto \exp {-{Q^2/4 \kappa ^2}}$$αs(Q2)∝exp-Q2/4κ2, in agreement with the effective charge determined from measurements of the Bjorken sum rule. The mass scale $$\kappa $$κ underlying hadron masses can be connected to the parameter $$\Lambda _{\overline{MS}}$$ΛMS¯ in the QCD running coupling by matching its predicted nonperturbative form to the perturbative QCD regime. The result is an effective coupling $$\alpha _s(Q^2)$$αs(Q2) defined at all momenta. One also obtains empirically viable predictions for spacelike and timelike hadronic form factors, structure functions, distribution amplitudes, and transverse momentum distributions.