We consider light neutralinos of mass about 1 GeV, produced from $τ$ lepton rare decays at Belle II, in the context of R-parity-violating (RPV) supersymmetry. With large and clean samples of $τ$ leptons produced at the Belle II experiment, excellent sensitivity to such light neutralinos with the exotic signatures of displaced vertices is expected. We focus on two benchmark scenarios of single RPV operators, $λ'_{311} L_3 Q_1 \bar{D}_1$ and $λ'_{312} L_3 Q_1 \bar{D}_2$, which induce both the production and decay of the lightest neutralino. For the reconstruction of a displaced vertex, we require at least two charged pions in the final states. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations for both signal and background events, and find that Belle II can explore regions in the parameter space competitive with other probes. In particular, for the $λ'_{311}$ scenario, it can put limits up to two orders of magnitude stronger than the current bounds.
Light neutralinos could be copiously produced from the decays of mesons generated in cosmic-ray air showers. These neutralinos can be long-lived particles in the context of R-parity violating (RPV) supersymmetric models, implying that they could be capable of reaching the surface of the earth and decay within the instrumental volume of large neutrino detectors. In this letter, we use atmospheric neutrino data from the Super-Kamiokande experiment to derive novel constraints for the RPV couplings involved in the production of long-lived light neutralinos from the decays of charged $D$-mesons and…
We propose a new search for light scalar singlets in rare meson decays. For tiny interactions, the scalar is long-lived at detector scales and decays into displaced pairs of leptons or light mesons. We show that Belle II has a remarkable potential to probe scalars in the GeV range with couplings as small as $10^{-5}$. The predicted sensitivity is higher than at the long-baseline experiments FASER and NA62. We also investigate signatures of invisibly decaying scalars in rare meson decays with missing energy.
In this letter we point out that the Belle II experiment has a unique sensitivity to visibly decaying long-lived dark photons. Concentrating on the signatures with a single high energy photon in association with a displaced pair of charged particles, we find that Belle II will be able to probe large regions of parameter space that cannot be covered by any other running or proposed experimental facility. While the signature with charged muons or pions in the final state is expected to be background-free after all selections are applied, the case of final state electrons is more involved and req…
Large numbers of $τ$ leptons are produced at Belle II. These could potentially decay into sterile neutrinos that, for the mass range under consideration, are typically long-lived, leading to displaced-vertex signatures. Here, we study a displaced-vertex search sterile-neutrino-extended Standard Model Effective Field Theory. The production and decay of the sterile neutrinos can be realized via either the standard active-sterile neutrino mixing or higher-dimensional operators in the effective Lagrangian. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations to estimate the Belle II sensitivities to such interactio…
The differential cross section of the chargino-neutralino production, q qbar --> chi+- chi0, followed by their decays into scalar tau leptons, chi+- chi0 --> (stau+- nu)(stau-+ tau+-) --> (stau+- nu)(stau-+ l+- nu nubar), is calculated including the effect of spin correlations. In the case where stau is long-lived, this final state can be fully reconstructed in a hadron-collider experiment up to a discrete two-fold ambiguity. Distributions of various kinematic variables can thus be observable and tell us about masses and spins of superparticles and also parity/CP violation in interactions by c…
We investigate the collider signatures of heavy, long-lived, neutral particles that decay to charged particles plus missing energy. Specifically, we focus on the case of a neutralino NLSP decaying to Z and gravitino within the context of General Gauge Mediation. We show that a combination of searches using the inner detector and the muon spectrometer yields a wide range of potential early LHC discoveries for NLSP lifetimes ranging from 10^(-1)-10^5 mm. We further show that events from Z(l+l-) can be used for detailed kinematic reconstruction, leading to accurate determinations of the neutralin…
We have studied three realistic benchmark geometries for a new far detector GAZELLE to search for long-lived particles at the \superkekb accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan. The new detector would be housed in the same building as Belle II and observe the same $e^+e^-$ collisions. To assess the discovery reach of GAZELLE, we have investigated three new physics models that predict long-lived particles: heavy neutral leptons produced in tau lepton decays, axion-like particles produced in $B$ meson decays, and new scalars produced in association with a dark photon, as motivated by inelastic dark matter…
The inelastic dark matter model is one kind of popular models for the light dark matter (DM) below $O(1)$ GeV. If the mass splitting between DM excited and ground states is small enough, the co-annihilation becomes the dominant channel for thermal relic density and the DM excited state can be long-lived at the collider scale. We study scalar and fermion inelastic dark matter models for $ {\cal O}(1) $ GeV DM at Belle II with $ U(1)_D $ dark gauge symmetry broken into its $Z_2$ subgroup. We focus on dilepton displaced vertex signatures from decays of the DM excited state. With the help of preci…
This work investigates the possibility of a long-lived stop squark in supersymmetric models with the neutralino as the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). We study the implications of meta-stable stops on the sparticle mass spectra and the dark matter density. We find that in order to obtain a sufficiently long stop lifetime so as to be observable as a stable R-hadron at an LHC experiment, we need to fine tune the mass degeneracy between the stop and the LSP considerably. This increases the stop-neutralino coanihilation cross section, leaving the neutralino relic density lower than what is…
If produced at the LHC, long-lived charged particles (LLCPs) would leave tracks in the muon detector. Time-of-Flight based methods for detecting these particles become less efficient if the LLCPs are fast, which would typically be the case if they are produced in the decays of some mother particle which is either heavy or very boosted. Thus for example, in supersymmetric models with long-lived sleptons, the long-lived sleptons produced in neutralino decays are often fast, with beta above 0.95 even at a 7 TeV LHC. We propose to use the (mis-measured) invariant mass distribution of "muon"-lepton…
Secondary photons from decays of metastable neutralinos can contribute to the ultra-high energy cosmic ray flux. The neutralino production rate is too low in acceleration mechanisms to affect the cosmic ray spectrum without emitting enormous energy in photons and neutrinos. However, in top-down models with sources not concentrated in galactic halos, neutralino decays change the spectrum significantly. We estimate the parameters of a model in which photons from neutralino decays are responsible for cosmic ray events with energies above 10^20 eV, and figure out distinctive experimental signature…
We investigate a class of models where the supergravity model with the standard model gauge group is extended by a hidden sector $U(1)_X$ gauge group and where the lightest supersymmetric particle is the neutralino in the hidden sector. We investigate this possibility in a class of models where the stau is the lightest supersymmetric particle in the MSSM sector and the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle of the $U(1)_X$-extended SUGRA model. In this case the stau will decay into the neutralino of the hidden sector. For the case when the mass gap between the stau and the hidden sector neut…
Inelastic dark matter is an interesting scenario for light thermal dark matter which is fully consistent with all cosmological probes as well as direct and indirect dark matter detection. The required mass splitting between dark matter $χ_1$ and its heavier twin $χ_2$ is naturally induced by a dark Higgs field which also provides a simple mechanism to give mass to the dark photon $A'$ present in the setup. The corresponding dark Higgs boson $h'$ is naturally the lightest dark sector state and therefore decays into Standard Model particles via Higgs mixing. In this work we study signatures with…
We consider a supergravity (SUGRA) scenario, with universal scalar and gaugino masses at high scale, with a right-chiral neutrino superfield included in the spectrum. Such a scenario can have a lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) dominated by the right sneutrino and a stau as the next-to lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP). Since decays of all particles into the LSP are suppressed by the neutrino Yukawa coupling, the signal of supersymmetry consists in charged tracks of stable particles in the muon chamber. We demonstrate how a neutralino decaying into a tau and the stau-NLSP can be ful…
Future lepton colliders such as the CEPC and FCC-ee would run as high-luminosity $Z-$boson factories, which offer a unique opportunity to study long-lived particles which couple to Z-bosons. In order to exemplify this particular advantage, in this work we consider one benchmark physics scenario where the long-lived lightest neutralinos pair $(\tildeχ_1^0\tildeχ_1^0)$ is produced from $Z-$decays in the context of the R-parity violating supersymmetry. Our analysis indicates that when assuming BR$(Z\rightarrow \tildeχ_1^0\tildeχ_1^0) = 10^{-3}$ and $m_{\tildeχ_1^0} \sim 40$ GeV, the model paramet…
Supersymmetric models with a small neutralino-chargino mass difference, and as a result metastable charginos, have been a popular topic of investigation in collider phenomenology, e.g. in anomaly-mediated models of supersymmetry breaking. Recently, the absence of any supersymmetric signal at the 8 TeV LHC data has led to significant interest in the so-called Natural SUSY models with light higgsinos. These models also have a naturally small neutralino-chargino mass difference. However, we show here that when relevant indirect constraints from results at the LHC and elsewhere are applied, this p…
The minimal supersymmetric (SUSY) standard model (MSSM) augmented by right chiral sneutrinos may lead to one such sneutrino serving as the lightest supersymmetric particle and a non-thermal dark matter candidate, especially if neutrinos have Dirac masses only. In such cases, if the lightest MSSM particle is a stau, the signal of SUSY at the LHC consists in stable charged tracks which are distinguishable from backgrounds through their time delay between the inner tracker and the muon chamber. We show how to determine in such scenarios the mass hierarchy between the lightest neutralino and right…
The presence of a hidden sector with very weak interactions with the standard model has significant implications on LHC signatures. In this work we discuss LHC phenomenology with the inclusion of a hidden sector by a $U(1)$ extension of MSSM/SUGRA. We consider both kinetic mixing and Stueckelberg mass mixing between the $U(1)$ gauge field of the hidden sector and $U(1)_Y$ of the visible sector. Such a model has an extended parameter space. We consider here two limited regions of this parameter space. In the first case we consider a $U(1)$ gauge field along with chiral fields needed for the Stu…
We consider SUSY extensions of the standard model where the gravitino is the dark-matter particle and the stau is long lived. If there is a significant mass gap with squarks and gluinos, the staus produced at hadron colliders tend to be fast (beta>0.8), and the searches based on their delay in the time of flight or their anomalous ionization become less effective. Such staus would be identified as regular muons with the same linear momentum and a slightly reduced energy. Compared to the usual SUSY models where a neutralino is the LSP, this scenario implies (i) more leptons (the two staus at th…
We present the prospects of searches for neutral, long-lived particles which decay to photons using their time of arrival measured with a newly installed timing system on the electromagnetic calorimeter (EMTiming) of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF). A Monte Carlo simulation shows that EMTiming can provide separation between decay photons from particles with both a long lifetime and a low boost, and prompt photons from Standard Model backgrounds. Using a gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking (GMSB) $\tildeχ_{1}^{0}\toγ\tilde{G}$ model we estimate a quasi-model-independent sensitivity us…
We propose a search for $B$ meson decays to a baryon plus missing energy at the Belle II experiment to probe supersymmetry with a GeV-scale lightest neutralino ${\tildeχ_1^0}$ and $R$-parity violation (RPV). We perform analytic computations of the signal branching fractions in the framework of effective field theory, with a single nonzero RPV operator $λ''_{ij3}\bar{U}_{i}^c\bar{D}_{j}^c\bar{D}_3^c$, where $i,j=1,2$. The hadronic form factors are calculated using an SU(3) phenomenological Lagrangian approach for the proton, as well as several hyperons and charmed baryons. Since the decay of th…
The $LQ\bar D$ operator in R-parity-violating supersymmetry can lead to meson decays to light neutralinos and neutralino decays to lighter mesons, with a long lifetime. Since the high-luminosity LHC is expected to accumulate as much as 3/ab of data, several detectors proposed to be built at the LHC may probe unexplored regions in the parameter space, for long-lived neutralinos. We estimate the sensitivity of the recently proposed detectors, CODEX-b, FASER, and MATHUSLA, for detecting such light neutralinos singly produced from $D$- and $B$-meson decays in a list of benchmark scenarios, and dis…
``Top--down'' models explain the observation of ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECR; $E \gsim 5 \cdot 10^{19}$ eV) through the decay of very massive, long--lived ``$X$ particles''. If superparticles with masses near a TeV exist, $X$ decays also lead to a significant flux of very energetic neutralinos, assumed to be the (stable or long--lived) lightest superparticles. There is a range of energies where neutrinos get absorbed in the Earth, but neutralinos can still traverse it. These neutralinos could in principle be detected. We calculate the detection rate in planned experiments such as OWL a…
In the framework of minimal flavor violation (MFV), we discuss the decay properties of a supersymmetric scalar top (stop) in the presence of a light gravitino. Given a small mass difference between the lighter stop and lightest neutralino and an otherwise sufficiently decoupled spectrum, the stop may be long-lived and thus can provide support to MFV at hadron colliders. For a bino-like lightest neutralino, we apply bounds from searches in the gamma gamma plus missing transverse energy channel (ATLAS with 1 fb^-1 and D0 with 6.3 fb^-1) and give a 5 fb^-1 projection for the ATLAS search.
We describe a novel way to measure the mass of heavy, long-lived neutral particles that decay to photons using collider experiments. We focus on a Light Neutralino and Gravitino model in a Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking scenario where the neutralino has a long-lifetime (O(ns)) as it is not excluded by current experiments. To illustrate our method and give sensitivity estimates we use recent CDF results and a production mechanism where sparticles are produced via $ϕ_{i} \rightarrow \widetildeχ^{1}_{0} \widetildeχ^{1}_{0} \rightarrow (γ\widetilde{G})(γ\widetilde{G})$ in which $ϕ_{i}$ indi…
We show that the Li problems can be solved in the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model where the slepton as the next-to-lightest SUSY particle is very long-lived. Such a long-lived slepton induces exotic nuclear reactions in big-bang nucleosynthesis, and destroys and produces the $^7$Li and $^6$Li nuclei via bound state formation. We study cases where the lightest SUSY particle is singlino-like neutralino and bino-like neutralino to present allowed regions in the parameter space which is consistent with the observations on the dark matter and the Higgs mass.
We study charged lepton flavor violation associated with a light leptophilic axion-like particle (ALP), $X$, at the $B$-factory experiment Belle II. We focus on production of the ALP in the tau decays $τ\to X l$ with $l=e,μ$, followed by its decay via $X\to l^- l^+$. The ALP can be either promptly decaying or long-lived. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations, recasting a prompt search at Belle for lepton-flavor-violating $τ$ decays, and propose a displaced-vertex (DV) search. For both types of searches, we derive the Belle~II sensitivity reaches in both the product of branching fractions and the …
We explore the possibility of having superpartners of triplet Higgs bosons, named as 'triplinos'. They form a part of light neutralinos and charginos in a $Y=0$ extended supersymmetric Standard Model. For this model such electroweakinos do not have direct couplings to the Standard Model fermions. On top of that, due to very compressed spectrum for lighter neutralinos and charginos, their decay products coming from three body decays are very soft and thus can evade the current collider bounds. These decays are particularly interesting since they give rise to displaced leptonic signatures. We ca…
Supersymmetry (SUSY) with a long-lived stau is an attractive scenario in the LHC experiments because one can directly observe stau tracks in each SUSY event, and thus precise measurements of SUSY particle masses are possible. In this scenario, we discuss the possibility to observe/measure parity violation in interactions among SUSY particles. Such a measurement will be important in determining spins and chiralities of SUSY particles. We use the last step of the cascade-decay chain: $χ^0\to\tildeττ\to\tildeτ(lν\barν)$, where the polarization of the tau lepton can be determined statistically by …
When the mass difference between the lightest slepton, the NLSP, and the lightest neutralino, the LSP, is smaller than the tau mass, the lifetime of the lightest slepton increases in many orders of magnitude with respect to typical lifetimes of other supersymmetric particles. These small mass differences are possible in the MSSM and, for instance, they correspond to the coannihilation region of the CMSSM for $M_{1/2} \gsim 700$ GeV. In a general gravity-mediated MSSM, where the lightest supersymmetric particle is the neutralino, the lifetime of the lightest slepton is inversely proportional to…
We propose to implement a two-stage detection strategy for exotic long-lived particles that could be produced at the CERN LHC, become trapped in detector material, and decay later. The proposed strategy relies on an array of metal rods, combined to form a high-density target. In a first stage, the rods are exposed to radiation from LHC collisions in one of the experimental caverns. In a second stage, they are individually immersed in liquid argon in a different experimental hall, where out-of-time decays could produce a detectable signal. Using a benchmark case of long-lived gluino pair produc…
A long-lived decaying dark matter as a resolution to Fermi, PAMELA and ATIC anomalies is investigated in the framework of split supersymmetry (SUSY) without R-parity, where the neutralino is regarded as the dark matter and the extreme fine-tuned couplings for the long-lived neutralino are naturally evaded in the usual approach.
Dark showers from strongly interacting dark sectors that confine at the GeV scale can give rise to novel signatures at $e^+e^-$ colliders. In this work, we study the sensitivity of $B$ factory experiments to dark showers produced through an effective interaction arising from a heavy off-shell mediator. We show that a prospective search for displaced vertices from GeV-scale long-lived particles at Belle II can improve the sensitivity to dark showers substantially compared to an existing search at BaBar. We compare the sensitivity of searches for displaced signals to searches for promptly produc…
In supersymmetric scenarios with a long-lived stau, the LHC experiments provide us with a great environment for precise mass measurements of superparticles. We study a case in which the mass differences between the lightest stau and other sleptons are about 10 GeV or larger, so that the decay products of heavier sleptons are hard enough to be detected. We demonstrate that the masses of neutralinos, sleptons, and squarks can be measured with a good accuracy.
The NuTeV Collaboration has observed an excess in their di-muon channel, possibly corresponding to a long-lived neutral particle with only weak interactions and which decays to muon pairs. We show that this can {\it not} be explained by pair production of neutralinos in the target followed by their decay far downstream in the detector via a $LLE$ R-parity violating (RPV) operator, as suggested in the literature. In the parameter region allowed by LEP the event rate is far too small. We propose instead a new neutralino production method via $B$-mesons, which can fully explain the observation. T…
The origin of the most energetic cosmic ray events, with $E \gsim 10^{20}$ eV, remains mysterious. One possibility is that they are produced in the decay of very massive, long--lived particles. It has been suggested that these so--called ``top--down scenarios'' can be tested by searching for ultrarelativistic neutralinos, which would be produced copiously if superparticles exist at or near the TeV scale. In this paper we present a detailed analysis of the interactions of such neutralinos with ordinary matter. To this end we compute several new contributions to the total interaction cross secti…
Neutralino dark matter is generally assumed to be relatively heavy, with a mass near the electroweak scale. This does not necessarily need to be the case, however. In the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) and other supersymmetric models with an extended Higgs sector, a very light CP-odd Higgs boson can naturally arise making it possible for a very light neutralino to annihilate efficiently enough to avoid being overproduced in the early Universe. In this article, we explore the characteristics of a supersymmetric model needed to include a very light neutralino, 100 MeV $< \…
We study the prospects for long-lived charged particle (LLCP) searches at current and future LHC runs and at a 100 TeV pp collider, using Drell-Yan slepton pair production as an example. Because momentum measurements become more challenging for very energetic particles, we carefully treat the expected momentum resolution. At the same time, a novel feature of 100 TeV collisions is the significant energy loss of energetic muons in detectors. We use this to help discriminate between muons and LLCPs. We find that the 14 TeV LHC with an integrated luminosity of 3 ab$^{-1}$ can probe LLCP slepton ma…
Recently Gligorov $\textit{et al.}$ [arXiv:1810.03636] proposed to build a cylindrical detector named '$\texttt{AL3X}$' close to the $\texttt{ALICE}$ experiment at interaction point (IP) 2 of the LHC, aiming for discovery of long-lived particles (LLPs) during Run 5 of the HL-LHC. We investigate the potential sensitivity reach of this detector in the parameter space of different new-physics models with long-lived fermions namely heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) and light supersymmetric neutralinos, which have both not previously been studied in this context. Our results show that the $\texttt{AL3X}…
We present the prospects of searches for neutral, long-lived particles which decay to photons using their time of arrival measured with a newly installed EMTiming system at CDF. Using GMSB $\tildeχ_{1}^{0}\toγ\tilde{G}$ models we estimate the expected 95% confidence level exclusion regions as a function of the neutralino mass and lifetime. We find that a combination of single photon and diphoton analyses should allow the Tevatron in run II to easily extend the exclusion regions from ALEPH at LEP II, and cover parts of the theoretically favored $m_{\tilde{G}}$ < few keV/c^2 GMSB parameter space…
We explore the physics potential of using precision timing information at the LHC in searches for long-lived particles (LLPs). In comparison with the light Standard Model particles, the decay products of massive LLPs arrive at detectors with time delays around the nanosecond scale. We propose new strategies to take advantage of this time delay feature by using initial state radiation to timestamp the collision event and require at least one LLP to decay within the detector. This search strategy is effective for a broad range of models. In addition to outlining this general approach, we demonst…
The addition of the QCD axion to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) not only solves the strong CP problem but also modifies the dark sector with new dark matter candidates. While SUSY axion phenomenology is usually restricted to searches for the axion itself or searches for the ordinary SUSY particles, this work focuses on scenarios where the axion's superpartner, the axino, may be detectable at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the decays of neutralinos displaced from the primary vertex. In particular, we focus on the KSVZ axino within the hadronic axion window. The decay lengt…
We review a non-standard Big-Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) scenario within the minimal supersymmetric standard model, and propose an idea to solve both ${}^{7}$Li and ${}^{6}$Li problems. Each problem is a discrepancy between the predicted abundance in the standard BBN and observed one. We focus on the stau, a supersymmetric partner of tau lepton, which is a long-lived charged particle when it is the next lightest supersymmetric particle and is degenerate in mass with the lightest supersymmetric particle. The long-lived stau forms a bound state with a nucleus, and provide non-standard nuclear rea…
In R-parity-violating supersymmetry the lightest neutralino can be very light, even massless. For masses in the range $500$ MeV$\lesssim m_{\tildeχ^0_1}\lesssim 4.5$ GeV the neutralino can be produced in hadron collisions from rare meson decays via an R-parity violating coupling, and subsequently decay to a lighter meson and a charged lepton. Due to the small neutralino mass and for small R-parity violating coupling the lightest neutralino is long-lived, leading to displaced vertices at fixed-target and collider experiments. In this work, we study such signatures at the proposed experiments AN…
We analyse the possibility to get light long-lived charginos within the framework of the MSSM with gravity mediated SUSY breaking. We find out that this possibility can be realized in the so-called focus-point region of parameter space. The mass degeneracy of higgsino-like chargino and two higgsino-like neutralinos is the necessary condition for a long lifetime. It requires the fine-tuning of parameters, but being a single additional constraint in the whole parameter space it can be fulfilled in the Constrained MSSM along the border line where radiative electroweak symmetry breaking fails. In …
