Less is More when Gluinos Mediate

Abstract

Compressed mass spectra are generally more difficult to identify than spectra with large splittings. In particular, gluino pair production with four high energy top or bottom quarks leaves a striking signature in a detector. However, if any of the mass splittings are compressed, the power of traditional techniques may deteriorate. Searches for direct stop/sbottom pair production can fill in the gaps. As a demonstration, we show that for $\tilde{g}\rightarrow t\tilde{t}_1$ and $m_{\tilde{t}_1}\sim m_{\tilde{\chi}_1^0}$, limits on the stop mass at 8 TeV can be extended by least 300 GeV for a 1.1 TeV gluino using a $pp\rightarrow \tilde{t}_1\tilde{t}_1$ search. At 13 TeV, the effective cross section for the gluino mediated process is twice the direct stop/sbottom pair production cross section, suggesting that direct stop/sbottom searches could be sensitive to discover new physics earlier than expected.