Search for Anomalous Production of Acoplanar Di-lepton Events in e+e- Collisions at sqrt{s} = 183 and 189 GeV

TL;DR

This study analyzed di-lepton events with missing energy in e+e- collisions at 183 and 189 GeV, finding results consistent with the Standard Model and setting limits on new particles like sleptons, charginos, and charged Higgs bosons.

Contribution

The paper provides the first model-independent limits on new particle production in di-lepton events at these energies, enhancing constraints on supersymmetric particles and charged Higgs bosons.

Findings

No evidence for new phenomena was observed.

Excluded right-handed smuons below 82.3 GeV.

Excluded charged Higgs bosons below 82.8 GeV.

Abstract

A selection of di-lepton events with significant missing transverse momentum has been performed using a total data sample of 237.4 pb-1 at e+e- centre-of-mass energies of 183 GeV and 189 GeV. The observed numbers of events - 78 at 183 GeV and 301 at 189 GeV - are consistent with the numbers expected from Standard Model processes, which arise predominantly from W+W- production with each W decaying leptonically. This topology is also an experimental signature for the pair production of new particles that decay to a charged lepton accompanied by one or more invisible particles. Discrimination techniques are described that optimise the sensitivity to particular new physics channels. No evidence for new phenomena is apparent and model independent limits are presented on the production cross-section times branching ratio squared for sleptons and for leptonically decaying charginos and charged Higgs. Assuming a 100 % branching ratio for the decay of a slepton to a lepton and the lightest neutralino, we exclude at 95 % CL: right-handed smuons with masses below 82.3 GeV for a smuon-neutralino mass difference > 3 Gev and right-handed staus with masses below 81.0 GeV for a stau-neutralino mass difference > 8 GeV. Right-handed selectrons are excluded at 95% CL for masses below 87.1 GeV for a selectron-neutralino mass diffeerence > 5GeV, within the framework of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model assuming mu < -100 GeV and tan{beta} = 1.5. Charged Higgs bosons are excluded at 95% CL for masses below 82.8GeV, assuming a 100% branching ratio for their decay to tau+neutrino.