Constraints on supersymmetry with light third family from LHC data

TL;DR

This paper reinterprets LHC data to set constraints on light third family squarks in supersymmetry, emphasizing model-independent limits from 0-lepton channels within the pMSSM framework.

Contribution

It provides a novel reinterpretation of ATLAS supersymmetry limits focusing on the low-scale pMSSM and explores the impact of high-scale scalar non-universality.

Findings

Limits are robust against slepton mass variations.

0-lepton channel constraints are largely model-independent.

Constraints on third family squarks are derived in physical mass terms.

Abstract

We present a re-interpretation of the recent ATLAS limits on supersymmetry in channels with jets (with and without b-tags) and missing energy, in the context of light third family squarks, while the first two squark families are inaccessible at the 7 TeV run of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In contrast to interpretations in terms of the high-scale based constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model (CMSSM), we primarily use the low-scale parametrisation of the phenomenological MSSM (pMSSM), and translate the limits in terms of physical masses of the third family squarks. Side by side, we also investigate the limits in terms of high-scale scalar non-universality, both with and without low-mass sleptons. Our conclusion is that the limits based on 0-lepton channels are not altered by the mass-scale of sleptons, and can be considered more or less model-independent.