Constraining compressed supersymmetry using leptonic signatures

TL;DR

This paper investigates how multi-lepton searches at the LHC can constrain supersymmetric models with compressed spectra, showing that these searches can be competitive with traditional jet plus missing energy methods.

Contribution

It introduces modified multi-lepton analysis strategies that improve sensitivity to compressed supersymmetric models at the LHC.

Findings

Exclusion limits reach gluino masses up to 1 TeV.

Modified analyses increase sensitivity to compressed spectra.

Multi-lepton searches can be competitive with jet plus missing E_T searches.

Abstract

We study the impact of the multi-lepton searches at the LHC on supersymmetric models with compressed mass spectra. For such models the acceptances of the usual search strategies are significantly reduced due to requirement of large effective mass and missing E_T. On the other hand, lepton searches do have much lower thresholds for missing E_T and p_T of the final state objects. Therefore, if a model with a compressed mass spectrum allows for multi-lepton final states, one could derive constraints using multi-lepton searches. For a class of simplified models we study the exclusion limits using ATLAS multi-lepton search analyses for the final states containing 2-4 electrons or muons with a total integrated luminosity of 1-2/fb at \sqrt{s}=7 TeV. We also modify those analyses by imposing additional cuts, so that their sensitivity to compressed supersymmetric models increase. Using the original and modified analyses, we show that the exclusion limits can be competitive with jet plus missing E_T searches, providing exclusion limits up to gluino masses of 1 TeV. We also analyse the efficiencies for several classes of events coming from different intermediate state particles. This allows us to assess exclusion limits in similar class of models with different cross sections and branching ratios without requiring a Monte Carlo simulation.