NLO corrections to squark-squark production and decay at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed next-to-leading order QCD calculation of squark-squark production and decay at the LHC, improving the accuracy of supersymmetry search predictions.

Contribution

It offers the first fully differential NLO QCD calculation for squark-squark production and decay, including factorization and comparison with LO approximations.

Findings

NLO corrections significantly affect differential distributions.

Comparison shows NLO results differ from LO by a flat K-factor.

Impacts on supersymmetry search strategies at the LHC.

Abstract

We present the analysis of the signature 2j + ETmiss (+X) via squark-squark production and direct decay into the lightest neutralino, pp -> squark squark -> j j chi_1^0 chi_1^0 (+X), in next-to-leading order QCD within the framework of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. In our approximation the produced squarks are treated on shell. Thus, the calculation of production and decay factorizes. In this way, we provide a consistent, fully differential calculation of NLO QCD factorizable corrections to the given processes. Clustering final states into partonic jets, we investigate the experimental inclusive signature 2j + ETmiss for several benchmark scenarios. We compare resulting differential distributions with leading-order approximations rescaled by a flat K-factor and examine a possible impact for cut-and-count searches for supersymmetry at the LHC.