Stau pairs from natural SUSY at high luminosity LHC

Abstract

Natural supersymmetry (SUSY) with light higgsinos is perhaps the most plausible of all weak scale SUSY models while a variety of motivations point to (right) tau sleptons as the lightest of all the sleptons. We examine a SUSY model line with rather light right-staus embedded within natural SUSY. For light stau_1 of a few hundred GeV, then the decays stau_1 -> \tau\tchi_{1,2}^0 and \nu_\tau\tchi_1^- occur at comparable rates where the (higgsino-like) \tchi_1^\pm and \tchi_2^0 release only small visible energy: in this case, the expected \tau^+\tau^- +\eslt signature is diminished from usual expectations due to the presence of the nearly invisible decay mode \ttau_1 -> \nu_\tau\tchi_1^-. However, once m_{\ttau_1}> ~m(bino), then decays to binos such as \ttau_1 -> \tau\tchi_3^0 open up where \tchi_3^0 decays to higgsinos plus W^\pm, Z^0 and h at comparable rates. For these heavier staus, then stau pair production gives rise to diboson+\eslt events which may contain 0, 1 or 2 additional hard \tau leptons. From these considerations, we examine the potential for future discovery of tau-slepton pair production at high-luminosity LHC. While we do not find a 5\sigma HL-LHC discovery reach for 3000 fb^{-1}, we do find a 95\% CL exclusion reach, ranging between m_{\ttau_1}:100-450 GeV for m_{\tchi_1^0}~ 100 GeV. This latter reach disappears for m_{\tchi_1^0}>~ 200 GeV.