FCNC-induced heavy-quark events at the LHC from Supersymmetry

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production of flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) heavy-quark pairs at the LHC within the MSSM framework, highlighting the potential for observable signals from Higgs decays and direct production, influenced by SUSY effects.

Contribution

It extends previous analyses by providing a comprehensive MSSM prediction map for FCNC qq'-pair production at the LHC, including SUSY-QCD and SUSY-EW contributions, under experimental constraints.

Findings

Higgs-mediated FCNC decays into bs are promising with ~1 pb cross-section.

Direct tc pair production can reach ~1 pb, mainly via SUSY-QCD effects.

Significant bs-pair yields (~10^4-10^5) are expected at 100 fb^-1 luminosity.

Abstract

We analyze the production and subsequent decay of the neutral Higgs bosons of the MSSM into electrically neutral quark pairs qq'=bs,tc of different flavors at the LHC and compare with the direct FCNC production mechanisms. The cross-sections are computed in the unconstrained MSSM with minimal flavor-mixing sources and taking into account the stringent bounds from radiative B-meson decays. We extend the results previously found for these FCNC processes, which are singularly uncommon in the SM. Specifically, we report here on the SUSY-EW contribution of the Higgs-mediated FCNC cross-section into bs and tc final states and the SUSY-QCD and SUSY-EW contributions to bs-production. In this way, the complete map of MSSM predictions for the qq'-pairs produced at the LHC becomes available. The upshot is that the most favorable channels are: 1) the Higgs boson FCNC decays into bs, and 2) the direct production of tc pairs, both of them at the 1 pb level and mediated by SUSY-QCD effects. If, however, the latter are suppressed, we find a small SUSY-EW yield for the tc-production through Higgs decays but, at the same time, a cross-section of 0.1-1 pb for bs-production, which implies a significant number (10^4-10^5) of bs-pairs per 100 inverse femtobarn of integrated luminosity.