Searches at HERA for Squarks in R-Parity Violating Supersymmetry

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for squarks in R-parity violating supersymmetry at HERA, setting mass exclusion limits based on the absence of observed deviations from the Standard Model in e^+p collisions.

Contribution

It provides the first constraints on squark masses in R-parity violating SUSY from HERA data, considering various decay modes and model parameters.

Findings

Excluded squark masses below 260 GeV for electromagnetic strength coupling.

Excluded squark masses up to 182 GeV for coupling 100 times weaker.

No significant deviation from the Standard Model observed.

Abstract

A search for squarks in R-parity violating supersymmetry is performed in e^+p collisions at HERA at a centre of mass energy of 300 GeV, using H1 data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 37 pb^(-1). The direct production of single squarks of any generation in positron-quark fusion via a Yukawa coupling lambda' is considered, taking into account R-parity violating and conserving decays of the squarks. No significant deviation from the Standard Model expectation is found. The results are interpreted in terms of constraints within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), the constrained MSSM and the minimal Supergravity model, and their sensitivity to the model parameters is studied in detail. For a Yukawa coupling of electromagnetic strength, squark masses below 260 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level in a large part of the parameter space. For a 100 times smaller coupling strength masses up to 182 GeV are excluded.