Search strategy for gluinos at the LHC with a Higgs boson decaying into tau leptons

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new LHC search strategy for gluinos involving Higgs bosons decaying into tau leptons, aiming to detect supersymmetric particles with specific decay signatures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel search approach targeting gluino decays with Higgs bosons into tau pairs, optimizing detection prospects at the LHC with high luminosity.

Findings

Potential to reach 2 sigma significance at 14 TeV with 1 ab$^{-1}$

Evidence-level significance projected at 3 ab$^{-1}$

Possibility to exceed 4 sigma in optimistic scenarios

Abstract

The possibility in supersymmetric scenarios that the dark matter candidate is a Higgsino-like neutralino means that its production can be associated with Higgs bosons. Taking advantage of this fact, we propose a LHC search strategy for gluinos with $\tau$ leptons in the final state, coming from the decay of a Higgs boson. We consider the strong production of a pair of gluinos, one of which decays into the Higgsino plus jets while the other decays into the bino plus jets. In turn, this bino decays into the Higgsino plus a Higgs boson which finally decays into a $\tau$-lepton pair. Therefore, the experimental signature under study consists of 4 jets, 2 $\tau$ leptons, and a large amount of missing transverse energy. Our cut-based search strategy allows us to reach, for a LHC center-of-mass energy of 14 TeV and a total integrated luminosity of 1 ab$^{-1}$, significances of up to 2 standard deviations, considering systematic uncertainties in the SM background of 30\%. The projections for 3 ab$^{-1}$ are encouraging, with significances at the evidence level, which in more optimistic experimental scenarios could exceed 4 standard deviations.