The Scale of Superpartner Masses and Electroweakino Searches at the High-Luminosity LHC

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of the high-luminosity LHC to discover electroweakinos, emphasizing the importance of squark-induced production and decay channels, and highlights the extended mass reach compared to current searches.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of electroweakino production and decay, considering the effects of squark-induced processes and the sign of μ, to improve search strategies at the HL-LHC.

Findings

Higgs decay channels dominate unless kinematically suppressed.

Squark-induced t-channel production significantly affects cross sections.

Discovery reach extends to higher masses than current LHC limits.

Abstract

Searches for weakly interacting particles is one of the main goals of the high luminosity LHC run. In this work we study the well motivated cases of electroweakinos with mostly Wino and Bino components. We show the relevance of squark induced t-channel production in defining the production cross section and hence the LHC reach. Moreover, a realistic evaluation of the decay branching ratios show a strong dependence on the sign of $\mu$ and, for negative values of $\mu$, on the relative size of the ratio of $\mu$ to the gaugino masses compared with tan$\beta$. Overall, unless it is kinematically suppressed, or specific conditions are fulfilled, the Higgs decay channel is the most significant one, and the trilepton channel becomes subdominant with respect to final states including bottom quarks. Although the properties are different than in the Higgsino-Bino case, also in this case the discovery reach extends to mass values that are significantly larger than the ones probed at current luminosities, leading to a strong motivation for the search for electroweakinos in the high luminosity LHC run.