Measuring Top Squark Interactions With The Standard Model Through Associated Production

TL;DR

This paper explores how the Large Hadron Collider can measure the interactions of a stable right-handed top squark with Standard Model particles through associated production, shedding light on supersymmetry and electroweak symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of LHC sensitivities to top squark couplings with photons, Z bosons, and Higgs, highlighting the potential to test supersymmetric solutions to the hierarchy problem.

Findings

High prospects for measuring photon and Higgs couplings.

Requires very high luminosity for Z coupling measurement.

Supports supersymmetric explanations for hierarchy problem.

Abstract

A new particle's interactions can be measured at colliders, by observing its associated production with Standard Model particles. We focus on the case of a collider-stable right-handed top squark and study the LHC sensitivities to its couplings to the photon, Z, and the Higgs boson. Such measurements determine the top squark's charge, mixing angle and coupling to the electroweak symmetry breaking sector. Determining these couplings can provide strong evidence for the supersymmetric solution to the hierarchy problem. Our analysis shows that the LHC has great prospects for measuring the photon and Higgs couplings, but will require a very high luminosity to measure the Z coupling.