How to look for supersymmetry under the LHC lamppost

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Nov 26;105(22):221801. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.221801. Epub 2010 Nov 22.

Abstract

We apply a model-independent, agnostic approach to the collider phenomenology of supersymmetry, in which all mass parameters are taken as free inputs at the weak scale. We consider the gauginos, Higgsinos, and the first two generations of sleptons and squarks, and analyze all possible mass hierarchies among them (4×8!=161,280 in total) in which the lightest superpartner is neutral, leading to missing energy. In each case, we identify the full set of the dominant decay chains originating from the lightest colored superpartner. Our exhaustive search reveals several quite dramatic yet unexplored multilepton signatures with up to 8 isolated leptons (plus possibly up to 2 massive gauge or Higgs bosons) in the final state. Such events are spectacular, background-free for all practical purposes, and may lead to a discovery in the very early stage (∼10 pb(-1)) of LHC operations at 7 TeV.