Probing minimal supergravity at the CERN LHC for largetanβ

Abstract
For large values of the minimal supergravity model parameter tanβ, the tau lepton and the bottom quark Yukawa couplings become large, leading to reduced masses of τ sleptons and b squarks relative to their first and second generation counterparts, and to enhanced decays of charginos and neutralinos to τ leptons and b quarks. We evaluate the reach of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) pp collider for supersymmetry in the MSUGRA model parameter space. We find that values of mg̃15002000GeV can be probed with just 10fb1 of integrated luminosity for tanβ values as high as 45, so that MSUGRA cannot escape the scrutiny of LHC experiments by virtue of having a large value of tanβ. We also perform a case study of an MSUGRA model at tanβ=45 where Z2ττ̃1 and W1τ̃1ντ with 100% branching fraction. In this case, at least within our simplistic study, we show that a di-tau mass edge, which determines the value of mZ2mZ1, can still be reconstructed. This information can be used as a starting point for reconstructing SUSY cascade decays on an event-by-event basis, and can provide a strong constraint in determining the underlying model parameters. Finally, we show that for large tanβ, there can be an observable excess of τ leptons, and argue that τ signals might serve to provide new information about the underlying model framework.
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