On cascade decays of squarks at the LHC in NLO QCD

TL;DR

This paper performs a next-to-leading order analysis of squark pair production at the LHC, focusing on decay chains leading to specific experimental signatures, and assesses the impact of NLO corrections on both invariant mass distributions and search predictions.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed NLO QCD analysis of squark cascade decays with realistic experimental cuts and decay channels, improving the accuracy of theoretical predictions for LHC searches.

Findings

NLO corrections significantly affect invariant mass distributions.

NLO effects alter predictions for cut-and-count search strategies.

Analysis enhances the precision of supersymmetry searches at the LHC.

Abstract

In this paper we present an analysis at NLO of the contribution from squark-squark production to the experimental signature 2j + 2l + missing E_T (+X) with opposite-sign same flavor leptons, taking into account decays and experimental cuts. We consider the case in which one squark decays directly into the lightest neutralino chi^0_1 and the other one into the second lightest neutralino and subsequently into l^+l^-chi^0_1 via an intermediate slepton. On one hand we study effects of the NLO corrections on invariant mass distributions which can be used for future parameter determination. On the other hand we analyze the impact on predictions for cut-and-count searches using this experimental signature.