Discovering $E_6$ SUSY models in gluino cascade decays at the LHC
We point out that the extra neutralinos and charginos generically appearing in a large class of $E_6$ inspired models lead to distinctive signatures from gluino cascade decays in comparison to those from the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). These signatures involve longer decay chains, more visible transverse energy, higher multiplicities of jets and leptons, and less missing transverse energy than in the MSSM. These features make the gluino harder to discover for certain types of conventional analyses, for example in the 6 jet channel we show that a 1 TeV MSSM gluino may resemble an 800 GeV $E_6$ gluino. However, the enriched lepton multiplicity provides enhanced 3- and 4-lepton signatures, which are much more suppressed in the case of the MSSM. As an example we analyse various scenarios in the E$_6$SSM, demonstrating the utility of a \texttt{CalcHEP} model that we have now made publicly available on HEPMDB (High Energy Physics Models DataBase). After extensive scans over the parameter space, we focus on representative benchmark points. We perform detailed Monte Carlo analyses, concentrating on the 3-lepton channel at the 7, 8, and 14 TeV Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and demonstrate that $E_6$ inspired models are clearly distinguishable from the MSSM in gluino cascade decays. We emphasise to the LHC experimental groups that the distinctive features present in gluino cascade decays, such as those discussed here, not only represents a unique footprint of a particular model but also may provide the key to an earlier discovery of supersymmetry.