Measuring masses of semi-invisibly decaying particles pair produced at hadron colliders

TL;DR

The paper introduces a new variable for measuring the masses of particle pairs decaying semi-invisibly at hadron colliders, improving mass measurement methods in such scenarios.

Contribution

A novel variable related to transverse mass is proposed, enabling more model-independent mass measurements of semi-invisible particles at colliders.

Findings

Effective in measuring selectron masses in SUSY models

Performs well without considering backgrounds or measurement errors

Related to the transverse mass variable used for W boson mass measurement

Abstract

We introduce a variable useful for measuring masses of particles pair produced at hadron colliders, where each particle decays to one particle that is directly observable and another particle whose existence can only be inferred from missing transverse momenta. This variable is closely related to the transverse mass variable commonly used for measuring the $W$ mass at hadron colliders, and like the transverse mass our variable extracts masses in a reasonably model independent way. Without considering either backgrounds or measurement errors we consider how our variable would perform measuring the mass of selectrons in a mSUGRA SUSY model at the LHC.