Impact of squark generation mixing on the search for gluinos at LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates how squark-generation mixing influences gluino decay patterns in the MSSM, revealing significant quark-flavor violating decay modes that could affect LHC gluino searches.

Contribution

It demonstrates that QFV gluino decay branching ratios can be large despite experimental constraints, impacting gluino detection strategies at LHC.

Findings

QFV gluino decay branching ratio can reach ~50%.

Squark-generation mixing significantly affects gluino decay signatures.

Implications for MSSM parameter determination at LHC.

Abstract

We study the effect of squark-generation mixing on gluino decays in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We show that due to the effect the quark-flavor violating (QFV) gluino decay branching ratio B(gluino -> c bar{t} (t bar{c}) + neutralino_1) can be very large (up to ~50%) in a significant part of the MSSM parameter space despite the very strong experimental constraints on QFV from B meson observables. This could have an important impact on the search for gluinos and the determination of the MSSM parameters at LHC.