The Landscape of Sparticle Mass Hierarchies and Their Signature Space at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the possible mass hierarchies of the four lightest supersymmetric particles in the minimal supersymmetric standard model and explores their signatures at the LHC to distinguish different patterns.

Contribution

It identifies at least 16 mass patterns for the four lightest sparticles and studies their collider signatures, providing benchmarks and analysis methods for LHC experiments.

Findings

Significant discrimination among mass patterns with 10 fb$^{-1}$ of data.

Correlation analysis in missing transverse momentum helps distinguish patterns.

At least 16 distinct mass hierarchies identified for the four lightest sparticles.

Abstract

The minimal supersymmetric standard model with soft breaking has a large landscape of supersymmetric particle mass hierarchies. This number is reduced significantly in well-motivated scenarios such as minimal supergravity and alternatives. We carry out an analysis of the landscape for the first four lightest particles and identify at least 16 mass patterns, and provide benchmarks for each. We study the signature space for the patterns at the CERN Large Hadron Collider by analyzing the lepton + (jet $\geq 2$) + missing $P_T$ signals with 0, 1, 2 and 3 leptons. Correlations in missing $P_T$ are also analyzed. It is found that even with 10 fb$^{-1}$ of data a significant discrimination among patterns emerges