Mixed Sneutrinos, Dark Matter and the LHC

Abstract

We study the phenomenology of supersymmetric models in which gauge-singlet scalars mix with the MSSM sneutrinos through weak-scale $A$ terms. After reviewing the constraints on mixed-sneutrino dark matter from measurements of $\Omega_{CDM}$ and from direct-detection experiments, we explore mixed-sneutrino signatures relevant to the LHC. For a mixed-sneutrino LSP and a right-handed slepton NLSP, decays of the lightest neturalino can produce opposite-sign, same-flavor (OSSF) dileptons with an invariant-mass distribution shifted away from the kinematic endpoint. In different parameter regions, the charginos and neutralinos produced in cascades all decay dominantly to the lighter sneutrinos, leading to a kinematic edge in the jet-lepton invariant-mass distribution from the decay chain $\tilde{q} \to \chi^- q \to \snu^* l q$, without an OSSF dilepton signature. We explore the possibility of using mass estimation methods to distinguish this mixed-sneutrino jet-lepton signature from an MSSM one. Finally, we consider signatures associated with Higgs-lepton or $Z$-lepton production in cascades involving the heavier sneutrinos.