Search for STaus in IceCube

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential to detect long-lived staus, supersymmetric partners of tau leptons, in IceCube by identifying their unique long, minimally ionizing tracks amidst atmospheric muon background.

Contribution

It presents the first sensitivity analysis for constraining stau mass using IceCube data and explores future improvements for detection.

Findings

Potential to distinguish stau tracks from atmospheric muons.

First sensitivity limits on stau mass in IceCube.

Analysis focused on the horizon region for optimal signal-to-background ratio.

Abstract

The tau lepton's supersymmetric partner, the stau, appears in some models as the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle. Their decay process into the lightest superpartner is usually suppressed by supersymmetry breaking, which makes it a long-lived particle. In this scenario, its signature is a long, minimally ionizing track when traveling through the IceCube detector. Independent of their primary energy, the stau tracks appear like low-energy muons in the detector. A potential signal of staus would thus be an excess over muon tracks induced by atmospheric muon neutrinos. Our analysis focuses on the region around the horizon as here the ratio between stau signal and atmospheric background is largest. We will present the first sensitivity to constrain the stau mass using IceCube and demonstrate the potential of this analysis with future improvements.