Less is More when Gluinos Mediate

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that direct stop/sbottom searches can significantly improve detection sensitivity for gluino-mediated processes with compressed spectra, especially at higher energies, by extending mass limits and increasing effective cross sections.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to enhance detection of compressed gluino spectra using direct stop/sbottom searches, surpassing traditional methods.

Findings

Limits on stop mass can be extended by at least 300 GeV at 8 TeV for certain gluino decays.

At 13 TeV, gluino-mediated processes have twice the cross section of direct pair production.

Direct stop/sbottom searches could enable earlier discovery of new physics in compressed spectra scenarios.

Abstract

Compressed mass spectra are generally more difficult to identify than spectra with large splittings. In particular, gluino pair production with four high energy top or bottom quarks leaves a striking signature in a detector. However, if any of the mass splittings are compressed, the power of traditional techniques may deteriorate. Searches for direct stop/sbottom pair production can fill in the gaps. As a demonstration, we show that for $\tilde{g}\rightarrow t\tilde{t}_1$ and $m_{\tilde{t}_1}\sim m_{\tilde{\chi}_1^0}$, limits on the stop mass at 8 TeV can be extended by least 300 GeV for a 1.1 TeV gluino using a $pp\rightarrow \tilde{t}_1\tilde{t}_1$ search. At 13 TeV, the effective cross section for the gluino mediated process is twice the direct stop/sbottom pair production cross section, suggesting that direct stop/sbottom searches could be sensitive to discover new physics earlier than expected.