Light stops emerging in WW cross section measurements?

TL;DR

The paper explores whether the slight excess in WW cross section measurements could be due to scalar top quark production in supersymmetric models, proposing a method to distinguish this from Standard Model processes.

Contribution

It identifies a specific stop mass range that could explain the WW excess and offers a way to differentiate supersymmetric signals from Standard Model backgrounds.

Findings

Stop mass around 200 GeV can contribute significantly to WW final states.

The proposed method can distinguish supersymmetric signals from Standard Model.

The benchmark point aligns with low energy and Higgs measurements.

Abstract

Recent ATLAS and CMS measurements show a slight excess in the WW cross section measurement. While still consistent with the Standard Model within 1-2 sigma, the excess could be also a first hint of physics beyond the Standard Model. We argue that this effect could be attributed to the production of scalar top quarks within supersymmetric models. The stops of mstop_1 ~ 200 GeV has the right pair-production cross section and under some assumptions can significantly contribute to the final state of two leptons and missing energy. We scan this region of parameter space to identify stop mass range preferred by the WW cross section measurements. Taking one sample benchmark point we show that it can be consistent with low energy observables and Higgs sector measurements and propose a method to distinguish supersymmetric signal from the Standard Model contribution.