Search for Chargino and Neutralino Production at sqrt(s) = 192-209 GeV at LEP

TL;DR

This paper reports on a search for chargino and neutralino production at LEP energies, setting limits on their cross-sections and masses within the MSSM framework based on analyzed e+e- collision data.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental limits on chargino and neutralino production cross-sections and masses at LEP energies, constraining supersymmetric models.

Findings

No evidence of chargino or neutralino production was observed.

Limits are set on cross-sections and masses at 95% confidence level.

Certain regions of the MSSM parameter space are excluded.

Abstract

Approximately 438 pb-1 of e+e- data from the OPAL detector, taken with the LEP collider running at centre-of-mass energies of 192-209 Gev, are analyzed to search for evidence of chargino pair production, e+e- -> tilde chi^+_1 tilde chi^-_1, or neutralino associated production, e+e- -> tilde chi^0_2 tilde chi^0_1. Limits are set at the 95% confidence level on the product of the cross-section for the process e+e- -> tilde chi^+_1 tilde chi^-_1 and its branching ratios to topologies containing jets and missing energy, of jest with a lepton and missing energy, and on the product of the cross-section for e+e- -> tilde chi^0_2 tilde chi^0_1 and its branching ratio to jets. R-parity conservation is assumed throughout this paper. When these results are interpreted in the context of the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, limits are also set on the masses of the tilde chi^+-_1, tilde chi^0_1 and tilde chi^0_2, and regions of the parameter space of the model are ruled out. Nearly model-independent limits are also set at the 95% confidence level on sigma(e+e- -> tilde chi^+_1 tilde chi^-_1) with the assumption that each chargino decays via a W boson, and on sigma(e+e- -> tilde chi^0_2 tilde chi^0_1) with the tilde chi^0_2 assumed to decay via a Z^0.