In supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model, the superpartners of the top quark (stops) play the crucial role in addressing the naturalness problem. For direct pair-production of stops with each stop decaying into a top quark plus the lightest neutralino, the standard stop searches have difficulty finding the stop for a compressed spectrum where the mass difference between the stop and the lightest neutralino is close to the top quark mass, because the events look too similar to the large $t\bar{t}$ background. With an additional hard ISR jet, the two neutralinos from the stop decays are boosted in the opposite direction and they can give rise to some missing transverse energy. This may be used to distinguish the stop decays from the backgrounds. In this paper we study the semileptonic decay of such signal events for the compressed mass spectrum. Although the neutrino from the $W$ decay also produces some missing transverse energy, its momentum can be reconstructed from the kinematic assumptions and mass-shell conditions. It can then be subtracted from the total missing transverse momentum to obtain the neutralino contribution. Because it suffers from less backgrounds, we show that the semileptonic decay channel has a better discovery reach than the fully hadronic decay channel along the compressed line $m_{\tilde{t}} - m_{\tildeχ}\approx m_t$. With 300 $\text{fb}^{-1}$, the 13 TeV LHC can discover the stop up to 500 GeV, covering the most natural parameter space region.
Top partner searches are one of the key aspects of new physics analyses at the LHC. We correct an earlier statement that supersymmetric top searches based on decays to semileptonic tops are not promising. Reconstructing the direction of the boosted leptonic top quark and correlating it with the measured missing transverse energy vector allows us to reduce the top pair background to an easily manageable level. In addition, reconstructing the full momentum of the leptonic top quark determines the stop mass based on an M_{T2} endpoint.
A light stop around the weak scale is a hopeful messenger of natural supersymmetry (SUSY), but it has not shown up at the current stage of LHC. Such a situation raises the question of the fate of natural SUSY. Actually, a relatively light stop can easily be hidden in a compressed spectra such as mild mass degeneracy between stop and neutralino plus top quark. Searching for such a stop at the LHC is a challenge. On the other hand, in terms of the argument of natural SUSY, other members in the stop sector, including a heavier stop $\tilde{t}_2$ and lighter sbottom $\tilde{b}_1$ (both assumed to …
In top squark (stop) searches with a compressed spectrum, it is very helpful to consider the stop production recoiling against a hard jet from the initial state radiation to obtain a significant amount of missing transverse energy. In particular, the kinematic variable $R_M$ which measures the ratio of the lightest neutralino mass and the stop mass proved to be crucial in separating the signals from the backgrounds in both the all-hadronic decay and the semileptonic decay of the stops. Here we generalize the search method to the dileptonic stop decays. In this case, due to the two missing neut…
Light top superpartners play a key role in stabilizing the electroweak scale in supersymmetric theories. For $R$-parity conserved supersymmetric models, traditional searches are not sensitive to the compressed regions. In this paper, we propose a new method targeting this region, with stop and neutralino mass splitting ranging from $m_{\tilde t} - m_χ\gtrsim m_t$ to about 20 GeV. In particular, we focus on the signal process in which a pair of stops are produced in association with a hard jet, and define a new observable $R_M$ whose distribution has a peak in this compressed region. The positi…
Searches for supersymmetric top quarks at the LHC have been making great progress in pushing sensitivity out to higher mass, but are famously plagued by gaps in coverage around lower-mass regions where the decay phase space is closing off. Within the common stop-NLSP / neutralino-LSP simplified model, the line in the mass plane where there is just enough phase space to produce an on-shell top quark remains almost completely unconstrained. Here, we show that is possible to define searches capable of probing a large patch of this difficult region, with S/B ~ 1 and significances often well beyond…
We utilize the recent LHC-13 TeV data to study the lower mass bound on top-squark (stop) in natural supersymmetry. We recast the LHC sparticle inclusive search of $(\ge 1){\rm jets} + E^{miss}_T$ with $α_T$ variable, the direct stop pair search (1-lepton channel and all-hadronic channel) and the monojet analyses. We find that these searches are complementary depending on stop and higgsino masses: for a heavy stop the all-hadronic stop pair search provides the strongest bound, for an intermediate stop the inclusive SUSY analysis with $α_T$ variable is most efficient, while for a compressed stop…
The main background for the supersymmetric stop direct production search comes from Standard Model ttbar events. For the single-lepton search channel, we introduce a few kinematic variables to further suppress this background by focusing on its dileptonic and semileptonic topologies. All are defined to have end points in the background, but not signal distributions. They can substantially improve the stop signal significance and mass reach when combined with traditional kinematic variables such as the total missing transverse energy. Among them, our variable M^W_T2 has the best overall perform…
Studying superpartner production together with a hard initial state radiation (ISR) jet has been a useful strategy for searches of supersymmetry with a compressed spectrum at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the case of the top squark (stop), the ratio of the missing transverse momentum from the lightest neutralinos and the ISR momentum, defined as $\bar{R}_M$, turns out to be an effective variable to distinguish the signal from the backgrounds. It has helped to exclude the stop mass below 590 GeV along the top corridor where $m_{\tilde{t}} - m_{\tildeχ_1^0} \approx m_t$. On the other hand,…
Traditional searches for R-parity conserving natural supersymmetry (SUSY) require large transverse mass and missing energy cuts to separate the signal from large backgrounds. SUSY models with compressed spectra inherently produce signal events with small amounts of missing energy that are hard to explore. We use this difficulty to motivate the construction of "deconstructed" transverse mass variables which are designed preserve information on both the norm and direction of the missing momentum. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these variables in searches for the pair production of supersymm…
The LHC searches for light compressed stop squarks have resulted in considerable bounds in the case where the stop decays to a neutralino and a charm quark. However, in the case where the stop decays to a neutralino, a bottom quark and two fermions via an off-shell W-boson, there is currently a significant unconstrained region in the stop-neutralino mass plane, still allowing for stop masses in the range 90-140 GeV. In this paper we propose a new monojet-like search for light stops, optimized for the four-body decay mode, in which at least one $b$-tagged jet is required. We show that, already …
We study the feasibility of probing a region of Natural Supersymmetry where the stop and higgsino masses are compressed. Although this region is most effectively searched for in the mono-jet channel, this signature is present in many other non-supersymmetric frameworks. Therefore, another channel that carries orthogonal information is required to confirm the existence of the light stop and higgsinos. We show that a supersymmetric version of the $t \bar t H$ process, $pp \to t \tilde t_1 \tilde χ^0_{1(2)}$, can have observably large rate when both the stop and higgsinos are significantly light,…
In minimal supergravity based supersymmetry models the charged sleptons as well as the sneutrinos may be lighter than the squarks. In such light slepton scenario the search for lighter stop squark has been investigated in the dilepton + missing $p_T(\missingpt)$ +jets ($\ge 1$) channel at Tevatron. In this scenario semileptonic decay of lighter stop squark has been considered via off shell and on shell charginos. In the latter case the chargino undergoes pure leptonic 2-body decay. We observe that for some favourable region of the MSSM parameter space one can probe lighter stop squark mass upt…
In compressed supersymmetry, a light top squark naturally mediates efficient neutralino pair annihilation to govern the thermal relic abundance of dark matter. I study the LHC signal of same-sign leptonic top-quark decays from gluino and squark production, which follows from gluino decays to top plus stop followed by the stop decaying to a charm quark and the LSP in these models. Measurements of the numbers of jets with heavy-flavor tags in the same-sign lepton events can be used to confirm the origin of the signal. Summed transverse momentum observables provide an estimate of an effective sup…
The ATLAS experiment has recently observed a 3-sigma excess in a channel with a leptonically decaying Z, jets, and ETmiss. It is tantalizing to interpret the signal as the first sign of a natural supersymmetric spectrum. We study such a possibility in a minimal model containing light stops and a neutralino LSP. The signal is characterized by a novel topology (compared to previous attempts) where the Z is emitted from a colored particle in the first step of a decay chain, namely t2 -> t1 Z which is characteristic of mixed stops. We show that the excess is compatible with a compressed stop spect…
Supersymmetric spectra with a stop NLSP and a neutralino or gravitino LSP present a special challenge for collider searches. For stop pairs directly produced from QCD, the visible final-state particles are identical to those of top quark pair production, giving very similar kinematics but often with much smaller rates. The situation is exacerbated for compressed spectra with m(stop) ~ m(top) + m(LSP), as well as for lighter stops which can suffer from low acceptance efficiencies. In this note, we explore the power of a direct stop search using dileptonic mT2, similar to the one recently perfor…
The top squark (stop) may dominantly decay to a bottom quark and a chargino if the mass difference between the stop and the lightest neutralino is comparable or less than the top quark mass. Such a moderately compressed spectrum is a challenging scenario for the stop search at the Large Hadron Collider, because it is difficult to separate the signals from the top and anti-top background. In this paper we focus on the di-leptonic decay channel, and consider many kinematic variables as possible discriminators. These include several MT2 variables and new "compatible-masses" variables which fully …
Compressed mass spectra are generally more difficult to identify than spectra with large splittings. In particular, gluino pair production with four high energy top or bottom quarks leaves a striking signature in a detector. However, if any of the mass splittings are compressed, the power of traditional techniques may deteriorate. Searches for direct stop/sbottom pair production can fill in the gaps. As a demonstration, we show that for $\tilde{g}\rightarrow t\tilde{t}_1$ and $m_{\tilde{t}_1}\sim m_{\tildeχ_1^0}$, limits on the stop mass at 8 TeV can be extended by least 300 GeV for a 1.1 TeV …
Two of the most important parameters in supersymmetry are the masses of the stop and sbottom, the supersymmetric partners of the third generation quarks. A stop mass lighter than 1 TeV is favored theoretically, however, conventional searches based on the simplified models have not produced experimental evidence for a light stop. It is possible that the light stop evades our searches due to a compressed sparticle mass spectrum. Therefore, the searches are extended to cover a broader range of signal scenarios with different mass splittings between the stop, neutralino(s), and chargino(s). The se…
Two of the most important parameters in supersymmetry are the masses of the stop and sbottom, the supersymmetric partners of the third generation quarks. A stop mass lighter than 1 TeV is favored theoretically; however, "conventional" searches based on the simplified models have not produced experimental evidence for a light stop. It is possible that the light stop evades our searches due to a compressed sparticle mass spectrum. Therefore, the searches are extended to cover a broader range of signal scenarios with different mass splittings between the stop, neutralino(s), and chargino(s). The …
If Supersymmetry (SUSY) has a compressed spectrum the current limits from the LHC can be drastically reduced. We take possible `worst case' scenarios where combinations of the stop, squark and gluino masses are degenerate with the mass of the lightest SUSY particle. To accurately derive limits in the model, care must be taken when describing QCD radiation and we examine this in detail. Lower mass bounds are then produced by considering all the 7 TeV hadronic SUSY and monojet searches. The evolution of the limits as the mass splitting is varied is also presented.
Top squark (stop) plays a key role in the radiative stability of the Higgs boson mass in supersymmetry (SUSY). The LHC searches for stop have made a great progress and tightly constrained the stop mass during Run-1. In this work, we use the LHC Run-1 data to determine the lower mass limit of the right-handed stop in a natural SUSY scenario, where the higgsinos $\tildeχ^0_{1,2}$ and $\tildeχ^\pm_{1}$ are light and nearly degenerate. We find that the stop mass has been excluded up to 430 GeV for $m_{\tildeχ^0_1} \lesssim 250$ GeV and to 540 GeV for $m_{\tildeχ^0_1} \simeq 100$ GeV by the Run-1 S…
The top squarks (stops) may be the most wanted particles after the Higgs boson discovery. The searches for the lightest stop have put strong constraints on its mass. However, there is still a search gap in the low mass region if the spectrum of the stop and the lightest neutralino is compressed. In that case, it may be easier to look for the second stop since naturalness requires both stops to be close to the weak scale. The current experimental searches for the second stop are based on the simplified model approach with the decay modes $\tilde{t}_2 \to \tilde{t}_1 Z$ and $\tilde{t}_2 \to \til…
Top squark (stop) can be produced via QCD interaction but also the electroweak interaction at the LHC. In this paper, we investigate the observability of the associated production of stop and chargino, $pp \to \tilde{t}_1\tildeχ^-_1$, in compressed electroweakino scenario at the 14 TeV LHC. Due to the small mass-splitting between the lightest neutralino ($\tildeχ^0_1$) and chargino ($\tildeχ^-_1$), such a single stop production can give a mono-top signature through the stop decay $\tilde{t}_1 \to t \tildeχ^0_1$. Focusing on the leptonic mono-top channel, we propose a lab-frame observable $\cos…
In supersymmetric theories, there is a scalar quartic related to the top and bottom yukawas that gives LHC observable decays of the stop or sbottom. After electroweak symmetry breaking, this quartic induces the decay of the stop (sbottom) to a charged Higgs and the sbottom (stop) without allowing for the corresponding channel involving the W boson. Unlike other scalar quartics, this scalar quartic is measurable at the LHC and for compressed spectra may even be the discovery channel for the stop or sbottom. Observing this decay and measuring the value of the quartic interaction would give direc…
We re-examine the stop co-annihilation scenario of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, wherein a bino-like lightest supersymmetric particle has a thermal relic density set by co-annihilations with a scalar partner of the top quark in the early universe. We concentrate on the case where only the top partner sector is relevant for the cosmology, and other particles are heavy. We discuss the cosmology with focus on low energy parameters and an emphasis on the implications of the measured Higgs boson mass and its properties. We find that the irreducible direct detection signal correlated wi…
We study the interplay of natural supersymmetry and a supersymmetric solution to the discrepancy observed in measurements of the muon magnetic moment. The strongest constraints on the parameter space currently come from chargino searches in the trilepton channel and slepton searches in the dilepton channel at the LHC, and vast regions are currently allowed, especially at large $\tanβ$. With light top squarks in the spectrum, as required from naturalness arguments, the situation changes dramatically; stop-assisted chargino and neutralino production via $\tilde{t} \rightarrow b \tildeχ_{1}^{\pm}…
We have explored a minimal supersymmetric standard model scenario extended by one pair of gauge singlets per generation. In the model light neutrino masses and their mixings are generated via inverse seesaw mechanism. In such a scenario, a right-handed sneutrino can be the lightest supersymmetric particle and a cold Dark Matter (DM) candidate. If Casas-Ibarra parametrisation is imposed on the Dirac neutrino Yukawa coupling matrix ($Y_ν$) to fit the neutrino oscillation data, the resulting $Y_ν$ is highly constrained from the lepton flavor violating (LFV) decay constraints. The smallness of $Y_…
We study the signal from the pair production of $t$-squarks at the Tevatron under the assumption that their two-body decay to charginos as well as their three-body decay to $W$ bosons is kinematically forbidden. In this case, the stop dominantly decays via $\widetilde{t_1}\rightarrow c\tz_1$, so that the signal consists of two charm jets together with $\eslt$. We reevaluate this signal using ISAJET~7.01, and show that if the stop mass is below about 100 GeV, there should be as many as 50-70 events in the accumulated data sample of the CDF and D0 experiments even if the LSP is as heavy as 50 Ge…
In the minimal supersymmetric model, the coannihilation of the lighter stop $\tilde{t}_1$ and bino-like dark matter $χ$ provides a feasible way to accommodate the correct dark matter relic abundance. In this scenario, due to the compressed masses, $\tilde{t}_1$ merely appears as missing energy at the LHC and thus the pair production of $\tilde{t}_1$ can only be probed by requiring an associated energetic jet. Meanwhile, since $\tilde{t}_2$ and $\tilde{b}_1$ are correlated in mass and mixing with $\tilde{t}_1$, the production of $\tilde{t}_2\tilde{t}_2^*$ or $\tilde{b}_1\tilde{b}_1^*$, each of …
In this paper we explore extensions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model involving two $SU(2)_L$ triplet chiral superfields that share a superpotential Dirac mass yet only one of which couples to the Higgs fields. This choice is motivated by recent work using two singlet superfields with the same superpotential requirements. We find that, as in the singlet case, the Higgs mass in the triplet extension can easily be raised to $125\,\text{GeV}$ without introducing large fine-tuning. For triplets that carry hypercharge, the regions of least fine tuning are characterized by small contribut…
Using the latest LHC data, we analyse and compare the lower limits on the masses of gluinos and the lightest stop in two natural supersymmetric motivated scenarios: one with a neutralino being the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) and the other one with gravitino as the LSP and neutralino as the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle. In the second case our analysis applies to neutralinos promptly decaying to very light gravitinos, which are of cosmological interest, and are generic for low, of order O(100) TeV, messenger scale in gauge mediation models. We find that the lower bounds on…
Supersymmetric (SUSY) explanation of the discrepancy between the measurement of $(g-2)_μ$ and its SM prediction puts strong upper bounds on the chargino and smuon masses. At the same time, lower experimental limits on the chargino and smuon masses, combined with the Higgs mass measurement, lead to an upper bound on the stop masses. The current LHC limits on the chargino and smuon masses (for not too compressed spectrum) set the upper bound on the stop masses of about 10 TeV. The discovery potential of the future lepton and hadron colliders should lead to the discovery of SUSY if it is responsi…
A study of four different machine learning (ML) algorithms is performed to determine the most suitable ML technique to disentangle a hypothetical supersymmetry signal from its corresponding Standard Model (SM) backgrounds and to establish their impact on signal significance. The study focuses on the production of SUSY top squark pairs (stops), in the mass range of $500<m_{\tilde{t}_1}<800$ GeV, from proton-proton collisions with a center of mass energy of 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 150 fb$^{-1}$, emulating the data-taking conditions of the run II LHC accelerator. In particular, the…
In recent years the search for dark matter has intensified with competitive bounds coming from collider searches, direct detection, and indirect detection. Collider searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) lack the necessary center-of-mass energy to probe TeV-scale dark matter. It is TeV-scale dark matter, however, that remains viable for many models of supersymmetry. In this paper, we study the reach of a 100 TeV proton-proton collider for neutralino dark matter and compare to 14 TeV LHC projections. We employ a supersymmetric simplified model approach and present reach estimates from mono…
In the supersymmetric models, the coannihilation of the neutralino DM with a lighter supersymmetric particle provides a feasible way to accommodate the observed cosmological DM relic density. Such a mechanism predicts a compressed spectrum of the neutralino DM and its coannihilating partner, which results in the soft final states and makes the searches for sparticles challenging at colliders. On the other hand, the abundance of the freeze-out neutralino DM usually increases as the DM mass becomes heavier. This implies an upper bound on the mass of the neutralino DM. Given these observations, w…
