Using Tau Polarization for Charged Higgs Boson and SUSY Searches at LHC

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how tau polarization measurements at the LHC can effectively distinguish signals of charged Higgs bosons and SUSY particles from background noise, enhancing search strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a simple method to measure tau polarization via the momentum fraction in hadronic decays, improving signal extraction for charged Higgs and SUSY searches at LHC.

Findings

Tau polarization measurement effectively suppresses background.

Method retains most of the signal polarization.

Enhances detection of charged Higgs and SUSY signals.

Abstract

The $\tau$ polarization can be easily measured at LHC in the 1-prong hadronic $\tau$ decay channel by measuring what fraction of the $\tau$-jet momentum is carried by the charged track. A simple cut requiring this fraction to be >0.8 retains most of the polarization of $\tau=$+1 $\tau$-jet signal while suppressing the polarization of $\tau=$-1 $\tau$-jet background and practically eliminating the fake $\tau$ background. This can be utilized to extract the charged Higgs signal. It can be also utilized to extract the SUSY signal in the stau NLSP region, and in particular the stau co-annihilaton region.