Reconstructing the chargino system at e^+e^- linear colliders

In most supersymmetric theories charginos, , belong to the class of the lightest supersymmetric particles. The chargino system can be reconstructed completely in collider experiments: . By measuring the total cross sections and the asymmetries with polarized beams, the chargino masses and the gaugino–higgsino mixing angles of these states can be determined accurately. If only the lightest charginos are kinematically accessible in a first phase of the machine, transverse beam polarization or the measurement of chargino polarization in the final state is needed to determine the mixing angles. From these observables the fundamental SUSY parameters can be derived: the SU(2) gaugino mass , the modulus and the cosine of the CP–violating phase of the higgsino mass parameter , and , the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the two neutral Higgs doublet fields. The remaining two–fold ambiguity of the phase can be resolved by measuring the normal polarization of the charginos. Sum rules of the cross sections can be exploited to investigate the closure of the two–chargino system. Received: 2 February 2000 / Published online: 17 March 2000     

Erratum to: Analysis of the neutralino system in supersymmetric theories

The European Physical Journal C - In the preceding reference [1] we have shown how the fundamental gaugino and higgsino parameters of the chargino and neutralino system in supersymmetric theories...     

Determining SUSY parameters in chargino pair-production in e^+e^- collisions

In most supersymmetric theories, charginos , mixtures of charged color-neutral gauginos and higgsinos, belong to the class of the lightest supersymmetric particles. They are easy to observe at colliders. By measuring the total cross sections and the left–right asymmetries with polarized electron beams in , the chargino masses and the gaugino–higgsino mixing angles can be determined. From these observables the fundamental SUSY parameters can be derived: the SU(2) gaugino mass , the modulus and of the higgsino mass parameter, and , the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the two neutral Higgs doublet fields. The solutions are unique; the CP-violating phase can be determined uniquely by analyzing effects due to the normal polarization of the charginos. Received: 3 December 1998 / Published online: 27 April 1999     

Doubly charged higgsino pair production and decays in {\bf e^+e^-} collisions

In supersymmetric grand unified theories, light higgsino multiplets generally exist in addition to the familiar chargino/neutralino multiplets of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model. The new multiplets may include doubly charged states and . We study the properties and the production channels of these novel higgsinos in and collisions, and investigate how their properties can be analyzed experimentally. Received: 24 November 1998 / Published online: 11 March 1999     

Chargino and neutralino decays revisited

We perform a comprehensive analysis of the decays of charginos and neutralinos in the minimal supersymmetric standard model where the neutralino is assumed to be the lightest supersymmetric particle. We focus, in particular, on the three-body decays of the next-to-lightest neutralino and the lightest chargino into the lightest neutralino and fermion–antifermion pairs and include vector boson, Higgs boson and sfermion exchange diagrams, where in the latter contribution the full mixing in the third generation is included. The radiative corrections to the heavy fermion and SUSY particle masses will also be taken into account. We present complete analytical formulae for the Dalitz densities and the integrated partial decay widths in the massless fermion case, as well as the expressions of the differential decay widths including the masses of the final fermions and the polarization of the decaying charginos and neutralinos. We then discuss these decay modes, in particular in scenarios where the parameter is large and in models without universal gaugino masses at the grand unification scale, where some new decay channels, such as decays into gluinos and pairs, open up. Received: 12 April 2001 / Published online: 8 June 2001     

Search for chargino and neutralino production at \sqrt{s} = 181–184 GeV at LEP

A search for charginos and neutralinos, predicted by supersymmetric theories, has been performed using a data sample of 57 pb at centre-of-mass energies of 181–184 GeV taken with the OPAL detector at LEP. No evidence for chargino or neutralino production has been found. Upper limits on chargino and neutralino pair production (, ) cross-sections are obtained as a function of the chargino mass (), the lightest neutralino mass () and the second lightest neutralino mass (). For large chargino masses the limits have been improved with respect to the previous analyses at lower centre-of-mass energies. Exclusion regions at 95% confidence level (C.L.) of parameters of the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model are determined for the case of a large universal scalar mass, , implying heavy scalar fermions, and for the case of a small resulting in light scalar fermions and giving the worst-case limits. Within this framework and for GeV the 95% C.L. lower limits on for GeV are 90.0 and 90.2 GeV for and 35 respectively. These limits for all (the worst-case) are 69.1 and 65.2 GeV for and 35 respectively. Exclusion regions are also presented for neutralino masses, including an absolute lower limit at 95% C.L. for the mass of the lightest neutralino of 30.1 GeV for GeV (24.2 GeV for all ), with implications for experimental searches for the lightest neutralino as a dark matter candidate. Received: 19 August 1998 / Published online: 11 March 1999     

Neutralinos in E_{6} inspired supersymmetric U(1)' models

The neutralino sector in inspired supersymmetric models with extra neutral gauge bosons and singlet Higgs fields contains additional gaugino and singlino states compared to the MSSM. We discuss the neutralino mixing in rank-5 and rank-6 models and analyze the supersymmetric parameter space where the light neutralinos have mainly singlino or MSSM character. The neutralino character, resonance effects of the new gauge bosons and, assuming mSUGRA-type RGEs, different selectron masses lead to significant differences between the MSSM and the extended models in neutralino production at an linear collider. Beam polarization may improve the signatures to distinguish between the models. In an appendix, we present the mass terms of the gauge bosons, charginos and sfermions which show a significant different mass spectrum than in the MSSM and give all relevant neutralino couplings. Received: 17 July 2001 / Revised version: 21 November 2001 / Published online: 25 January 2002     

Search for chargino and neutralino production at \sqrt{s} = 189 GeV at LEP

A search for charginos and neutralinos, predicted by supersymmetric theories, is performed using a data sample of 182.1 pb taken at a centre-of-mass energy of 189 GeV with the OPAL detector at LEP. No evidence for chargino or neutralino production is found. Upper limits on chargino and neutralino pair production (, ) cross-sections are obtained as a function of the chargino mass (), the lightest neutralino mass () and the second lightest neutralino mass (). Within the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model framework, and for GeV, the 95% confidence level lower limits on are 93.6 GeV for and 94.1 GeV for . These limits are obtained assuming a universal scalar mass 500 GeV. The corresponding limits for all are 78.0 and 71.7 GeV. The 95% confidence level lower limits on the lightest neutralino mass, valid for any value of are 32.8 GeV for GeV and 31.6 GeV for all . Received: 14 October 1999 / Published online: 6 March 2000     

Production and decay of neutralinos in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

Within the framework of the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) we study neutralino production (i,j=1, …, 5) at center-of-mass energies between 100 and 600 GeV and the decays of the heavier neutralinos into the LSP plus a fermion pair, a photon or a Higgs boson. For representative gaugino/higgsino mixing scenarios, where the light neutralinos have significant singlet components, we find some striking differences between the NMSSM and the minimal supersymmetric model. Since in the NMSSM neutralino and Higgs sector are strongly correlated, the decay of the second lightest neutralino into a Higgs boson and the LSP often is kinematically possible and even dominant in a large parameter region of typical NMSSM scenarios. Also, the decay rates into final states with a photon may be enhanced.     

Phenomenology of non-universal gaugino masses and implications for the Higgs boson decay

Grand unified theories (GUTs) can lead to non-universal gaugino masses at the unification scale. We study the implications of such non-universal gaugino masses for the composition of the lightest neutralino in supersymmetric (SUSY) theories based on SU(5) gauge group. We also consider the phenomenological implications of non-universal gaugino masses for the phenomenology of Higgs bosons in the context of large hadron collider.      

Virtual LSPs at e+ e− colliders

Currently popular search strategies for supersymmetric particles may be significantly affected due to relatively light sneutrinos which decay dominantly into invisible channels. In certain cases the second lightest neutralino may also decay invisibly leading to two extra carriers of missing energy (in addition to the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) ) — the virtual LSPs (VLSPs). A tree lavel calculation shows that if the sneutrino mass happens to be in the small but experimentally allowed range (m _≈ν ≈ 45–55 GeV), these particles together with neutralino pairs may contribute significantly to the missing energy in the process e⁺e^? → γ+ E at LEP-2 energies as an enhancement over the Standard Model or the conventional MSSM predictions. It is further shown that a much larger region of the parameter space can be scanned at a high luminosity e⁺e^? collider at 500 GeV like the proposed NLC machine. Moreover, at both LEP-2 and NLC this process may play a complementary role to direct chargino searches, which may fail due to a near mass degeneracy of the chargino and the sneutrino. Formulae for the cross sections taking into account full mixings of the charginos and the neutralinos are derived. The signal remains observable even in the context of more restricted models based onN=1 SUGRA with common scalar and gaugino masses. A preliminary study of the QED radiative corrections due to soft multiple photon emission as well as hard collinear bremsstrahlung indicates that these corrections play a crucial role in estimating the background.     

Parameter space of general gauge mediation

We study a subspace of General Gauge Mediation (GGM) models which generalize models of gauge mediation. We find superpartner spectra that are markedly different from those of typical gauge and gaugino mediation scenarios. While typical gauge mediation predictions of either a neutralino or stau next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) are easily reproducible with the GGM parameters, chargino and sneutrino NLSPs are generic for many reasonable choices of GGM parameters.     

Signatures of MSSM charged Higgs bosons via chargino–neutralino decay channels at the LHC

We assess the potential of detecting a charged Higgs boson of the MSSM at the LHC via its decays into a chargino and a neutralino. We focus our attention on the region of parameter space with and , where identification of the via other decay modes has proven to be ineffective. Searching for means to plug this hole, we simulate the decays and – the former can yield a single hard lepton (from the chargino decay) while the latter can yield three leptons (from the chargino and neutralino decays). Coupled with the dominant top quark + charged Higgs boson production mode, the resulting signature is one or three hard, isolated leptons, substantial missing transverse momentum and a reconstructed (via a 3-jet invariant mass) top quark. The single lepton channel is swamped by background processes; however, with suitable cuts, a trilepton signal emerges. While such a signal suffers from a low number of surviving events (after cuts) and is dependent on several MSSM input parameters (notably , and slepton masses), it does fill at least some of the void left by previous investigations. Received: 21 October 2000 / Published online: 23 February 2001     

Electroweak corrections to neutralino and chargino decays into a W-boson in the (N)MSSM

We present the complete electroweak one-loop corrections to the partial widths for two-body decays of a chargino (neutralino) into a W-boson and a neutralino (chargino). We perform the calculation for the minimal and the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model using an on-shell renormalization scheme. Particular attention is paid to the question of gauge invariance which is achieved using the so-called pinch technique. Furthermore we show that these corrections show a strong parameter dependence and usually are in the range of 1–10 percent if the neutralino involved is a higgsino- or wino-like state. However, in case of a bino-like or a singlino-like neutralino the corrections can go up to 50% and more. Moreover we present the public program CNNDecays performing these calculations.     

Exact solution of the neutralino mass matrix

The eigenvalue problem for the neutralino mass matrix has been solved exactly and the eigenvalues are expressed in terms of thev ₁/v ₂, chargino and gluino masses which are directly measurable. An analytical formula for the lightest neutralino mass as a function of the above parameters is obtained. Formulae for the photino, zino and neutral higgsino contents of each of the physical neutralino mass eigenstates states have been found. Taking into account these formulae it has been possible to predict the upper (lower) bound on the mass of zino (photino) dominant neutralino states, including the lightest one. The neutralino-gluino and neutralino-chargino mass planes have also been constrained by using the latest LEP data.     

Search for chargino and neutralino production at \sqrt{s} = 170 and 172 GeV at LEP

A search for charginos and neutralinos, predicted by supersymmetric theories, has been performed using a data sample of pb at centre-of-mass energies of 170 and 172 GeV with the OPAL detector at LEP. No evidence for these particles has been found. The results are combined with those from previous OPAL chargino and neutralino searches at lower energies to obtain limits. Exclusion regions at 95% C.L. of parameters of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model are determined. Within this framework, for , lower mass limits are placed on the lightest chargino and the three lightest neutralinos. The 95% C.L. lower mass limit on the lightest chargino, assuming that it is heavier than the lightest neutralino by more than 10 GeV, is 84.5 GeV for the case of a large universal scalar mass ( 1 TeV) and 65.7 GeV for the smallest compatible with current limits on the sneutrino mass and slepton cross-sections. The lower limit on the lightest neutralino mass at 95% C.L. for is 24.7 GeV for TeV and 13.3 GeV for the minimum scenario. These mass limits are higher for increasing values of . The interpretation of the limits in terms of gluino and scalar quark mass limits is also given. Received: 11 July 1997 / Online publication: February 26, 1998     

Radioactive Production of the Lightest Neutralino in the Process of <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>−</Superscript> Annihilation

The production of the lightest stable neutralino in the reaction with general mixing of the higgsino and gaugino is studied. General formulas for differential cross sections are presented. The dependence of the effective differential cross section on the photon energy spectrum and electron mass is illustrated together with the dependence of the effective total cross section on the beam energy for three different scenarios. __________ Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 6, pp. 48–57, June, 2005.     

Neutralino and chargino masses and related sum rules beyond MSSM

We study the implications of dimension five operators involving Higgs chiral superfields for the masses of neutralinos and charginos in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). These operators can arise from additional interactions beyond those of MSSM involving new degrees of freedom at or above the TeV scale. In addition to the masses of the neutralinos and charginos, we study the sum rules involving the masses and squared masses of these particles for different gaugino mass patterns in presence of the dimension five operators. We derive a relation for the higgsino mixing mass parameter and tan β in the presence of the dimension five operators.     

Gaugino-higgsino mixing and slepton-squark production in ep collisions

We consider gaugino-higgsino mixing in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model and determine the mass eigenstates and eigenvalues taking the physical masses of the lightest chargino and neutralino as input in the diagonalization procedure. Using the results we calculate cross sections and charge asymmetries for the associated production of sleptons and squarks in ep collisions and investigate the dependence on the chargino and neutralino properties and on the slepton and squark spectrum. The numerical analysis is performed within the minimal supergravity model as well as in a more general framework. Although predictions are made also for higher energies, the main focus is on the HERA energy range. We indicate the values of sparticle masses accessible to SUSY searches at HERA and illustrate the expected reach beyond the present bounds.     

CP violation and extra dimensions

It is shown that new sources of CP violation can be generated in models with more than one extra dimension. In the supersymmetric models on the space-time , where the radius moduli have auxiliary vacuum expectation values and the supersymmetry breaking is mediated by the Kaluza–Klein states of the gauge supermultiplets, we analyze the gaugino masses and trilinear couplings for two scenarios and obtain the result that there exist relative CP violating phases among the gaugino masses and trilinear couplings. Received: 10 October 2001 / Published online: 20 December 2001