Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for heavy, long-lived particles decaying away from the collision point in 7 TeV proton-proton collisions, using ATLAS data, setting limits on supersymmetric particle production.

Contribution

First search for displaced vertices from heavy particle decays in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS, providing new limits on supersymmetric models with long-lived particles.

Findings

No signal observed for displaced heavy particle decays.

Set limits on supersymmetric particle production cross-sections.

Extended constraints to various model parameters.

Abstract

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.