Energetic long-lived particles in the CMS muon chambers

Abstract

We present a recast in different benchmark models of the recent CMS search that uses the endcap muon detector system to identify displaced showers produced by decays of long-lived particles (LLPs). The exceptional shielding provided by the steel between the stations of the muon system drastically reduces the Standard Model background that limits other existing ATLAS and CMS searches. At the same time, by using the muon system as a sampling calorimeter, the search is sensitive to LLPs energies rather than masses. We show that, thanks to these characteristics, this new search approach is sensitive to LLPs masses even lighter than a GeV, and can be complementary to proposed and existing dedicated LLP experiments.