Discovering the constrained NMSSM with tau leptons at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the detection prospects of the constrained NMSSM at the LHC, focusing on tau lepton signatures and proposing analysis cuts to improve sensitivity over generic SUSY searches.

Contribution

It introduces a dedicated analysis strategy for the cNMSSM with tau leptons, enhancing the ability to distinguish it from the cMSSM at the LHC.

Findings

Proposed cuts improve detection sensitivity for cNMSSM signals.

Distribution of effective mass helps differentiate cNMSSM from cMSSM.

Analysis extends the reach of SUSY searches in the stau-coannihilation region.

Abstract

The constrained Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (cNMSSM) with mSugra-like boundary conditions at the GUT scale implies a singlino-like LSP with a mass just a few GeV below a stau NLSP. Hence, most of the squark/gluino decay cascades contain two tau leptons. The gluino mass >~ 1.2 TeV is somewhat larger than the squark masses of >~ 1 TeV. We simulate signal and background events for such a scenario at the LHC, and propose cuts on the transverse momenta of two jets, the missing transverse energy and the transverse momentum of a hadronically decaying tau lepton. This dedicated analysis allows to improve on the results of generic supersymmetry searches for a large part of the parameter space of the cNMSSM. The distribution of the effective mass and the signal rate provide sensitivity to distinguish the cNMSSM from the constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model in the stau-coannihilation region.