Search for Higgsinos in final states with low-momentum lepton-track pairs at 13 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for Higgsinos with nearly degenerate masses in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV, using CMS data, focusing on low-momentum leptons and isolated tracks to identify potential signals.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis targeting low-momentum lepton pairs and isolated tracks to explore previously untested Higgsino parameter space at the LHC.

Findings

Excluded Higgsino masses up to 115 GeV.

Probed mass differences between neutralinos down to 1.5 GeV.

Enhanced sensitivity using multivariate discriminants.

Abstract

We present a search for the pair production of Higgsinos in final states with large missing transverse momentum and either two reconstructed muons or a reconstructed lepton (muon or electron) and an isolated track. The analyzed data correspond to proton-proton collisions with an integrated luminosity of 137 fb$^{-1}$, collected by the CMS experiment at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV in 2016, 2017, and 2018. The signal scenario assumes four nearly mass degenerate higgsino mass eigenstates, two neutralino states, $\widetilde{\chi}^0_2$ and $\widetilde{\chi}^0_1$, with a small mass difference in the range 1$-$10 GeV and two chargino states $\widetilde{\chi}^\pm_1$ with an intermediate mass. The analysis focuses on the decay of the heavier neutralino into the lighter one and a virtual Z boson, which decays into two same-flavor leptons. The leptons have small transverse momentum and/or a small opening angle between the identified muons. An isolated track is used to recover events in which only one of the two leptons is identified. Multivariate discriminants are used to enhance the sensitivity by efficiently rejecting backgrounds from SM processes or misreconstructed tracks and/or leptons. The search explores a unique phase space and probes a previously unexplored region of the signal model parameter space. Mass differences between the two neutralinos are probed down to 1.5 GeV, assuming a Higgsino mass of 100 GeV. The maximum excluded Higgsino mass is 115 GeV.