Search for supersymmetry in electroweak production with photons and large missing transverse energy in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for supersymmetry in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV, focusing on photon and missing energy signatures, setting new limits on wino and bino masses with no observed excess.

Contribution

It introduces a specialized trigger and analysis method for electroweak supersymmetry production with photons and missing energy, providing the most stringent limits to date.

Findings

Excluded wino masses below 710 GeV at 95% CL.

No significant excess over the standard model observed.

Set the lowest cross section limits on electroweak SUSY production.

Abstract

Results are reported from a search for supersymmetry with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking in electroweak production. Final states with photons and large missing transverse energy (MET) were examined. The data sample was collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to 7.4 inverse femtobarns. The analysis focuses on scenarios in which the lightest neutralino has bino- or wino-like components, resulting in decays to photons and gravitinos, where the gravitinos escape undetected. The data were obtained using a specially designed trigger with dedicated low thresholds, providing good sensitivity to signatures with photons, MET, and low hadronic energy. No excess of events over the standard model expectation is observed. The results are interpreted using the model of general gauge mediation. With the wino mass fixed at 10 GeV above that of the bino, wino masses below 710 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level. Constraints are also set in the context of two simplified models, for which the analysis sets the lowest cross section limits on the electroweak production of supersymmetric particles.