Cosmology and New Physics

A comparison of the standard models in particle physics and in cosmology demonstrates that they are not compatible, though both are well established. Basics of modern cosmology are briefly reviewed. It is argued that the measurements of the main cosmological parameters are achieved through many independent physical phenomena and this minimizes possible interpretation errors. It is shown that astronomy demands new physics beyond the frameworks of the (minimal) standard model in particle physics. More revolutionary modifications of the basic principles of the theory are also discussed.Comment: 37 pages, 5 figures; lectures presented at 9th International Moscow School of Physics (34th ITEP Winter School

Supersymmetric top and bottom squark production at hadron colliders

The scalar partners of top and bottom quarks are expected to be the lightest squarks in supersymmetric theories, with potentially large cross sections at hadron colliders. We present predictions for the production of top and bottom squarks at the Tevatron and the LHC, including next-to-leading order corrections in supersymmetric QCD and the resummation of soft gluon emission at next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy. We discuss the impact of the higher-order corrections on total cross sections and transverse-momentum distributions, and provide an estimate of the theoretical uncertainty due to scale variation and the parton distribution functions.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figure

Probing CP Violation with and without Momentum Reconstruction at the LHC

We study the potential to observe CP-violating effects in SUSY cascade decay chains at the LHC. We consider squark and gluino production followed by subsequent decays into neutralinos with a three-body leptonic decay in the final step. Asymmetries composed by triple products of momenta of the final state particles are sensitive to CP-violating effects. Due to large boosts these asymmetries can be difficult to observe at a hadron collider. We show that using all available kinematic information one can reconstruct the decay chains on an event-by-event basis even in the case of 3-body decays, neutrinos and LSPs in the final state. We also discuss the most important experimental effects like major backgrounds and momentum smearing due to finite detector resolution. We show that with 300 fb$^{-1}$ of collected data, CP violation may be discovered at the LHC for a wide range of the phase of the bino mass parameter $M_1$.Comment: Version accepted for publication in JHEP. Clarifications added on the assumptions used for plots. New references adde

SUSY parameter determination at the LHC using cross sections and kinematic edges

We study the determination of supersymmetric parameters at the LHC from a global fit including cross sections and edges of kinematic distributions. For illustration, we focus on a minimal supergravity scenario and discuss how well it can be constrained at the LHC operating at 7 and 14 TeV collision energy, respectively. We find that the inclusion of cross sections greatly improves the accuracy of the SUSY parameter determination, and allows to reliably extract model parameters even in the initial phase of LHC data taking with 7 TeV collision energy and 1/fb integrated luminosity. Moreover, cross section information may be essential to study more general scenarios, such as those with non-universal gaugino masses, and distinguish them from minimal, universal, models.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figure

Search for supersymmetry in events with b-tagged jets and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for the supersymmetric partners of the Standard Model bottom and top quarks is presented. The search uses 36.1 fb−1 of pp collision data at √s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Direct production of pairs of bottom and top squarks (b˜1 and t˜1) is searched for in final states with b-tagged jets and missing transverse momentum. Distinctive selections are defined with either no charged leptons (electrons or muons) in the final state, or one charged lepton. The zero-lepton selection targets models in which the b˜1 is the lightest squark and decays via b˜1 → bχ˜01 , where ˜χ01 is the lightest neutralino. The one-lepton final state targets models where bottom or top squarks are produced and can decay into multiple channels, b˜1 → bχ˜01 and b˜1 → tχ˜±1, or t˜1 → tχ˜01 and t˜1→ bχ˜±1, where ˜χ±1 is the lightest chargino and the mass difference mχ˜±1 − mχ˜01 is set to 1 GeV. No excess above the expected Standard Model background is observed. Exclusion limits at 95% confidence level on the mass of third-generation squarks are derived in various supersymmetry-inspired simplified models

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with hadronically decaying tau leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at s√ = 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry in events with large missing transverse momentum, jets, and at least one hadronically decaying tau lepton has been performed using 3.2 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data at s√=13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015. Two exclusive final states are considered, with either exactly one or at least two tau leptons. No excess over the Standard Model prediction is observed in the data. Results are interpreted in the context of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking and a simplified model of gluino pair production with tau-rich cascade decays, substantially improving on previous limits. In the GMSB model considered, supersymmetry-breaking scale (Λ) values below 92 TeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level, corresponding to gluino masses below 2000 GeV. For large values of tanβ, values of Λ up to 107 TeV and gluino masses up to 2300 GeV are excluded. In the simplified model, gluino masses are excluded up to 1570 GeV for neutralino masses around 100 GeV. Neutralino masses up to 700 GeV are excluded for all gluino masses between 800 GeV and 1500 GeV, while the strongest exclusion of 750 GeV is achieved for gluino masses around 1400 GeV