Search for direct production of electroweakinos in final states with one lepton, jets and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

Searches for electroweak production of chargino pairs, $\tilde{\chi}^{+}_{1}\tilde{\chi}^{-}_{1}$, and of chargino and next-to-lightest neutralino, $\tilde{\chi}^{\pm}_{1}\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{2}$, are presented. The models explored assume that the charginos decay into a $W$ boson and the lightest neutralino, $\tilde{\chi}^{\pm}_1 \rightarrow W^{\pm} \tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$. The next-to-lightest neutralinos are degenerate in mass with the chargino and decay to $\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$ and either a $Z$ or a Higgs boson, $\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{2} \rightarrow Z \tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$ or $h \tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$. The searches exploit the presence of a single isolated lepton and missing transverse momentum from the $W$ boson decay products and the lightest neutralinos, and the presence of jets from hadronically decaying $Z$ or $W$ bosons or from the Higgs boson decaying into a pair of $b$-quarks. The searches use 139 fb$^{-1}$ of $\sqrt{s}= 13$ TeV proton-proton collisions data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider between 2015 and 2018. No deviations from the Standard Model expectations are found, and 95% confidence level exclusion limits are set. Chargino masses ranging from 260 to 520 GeV are excluded for a massless $\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$ in chargino pair production models. Degenerate chargino and next-to-lightest neutralino masses ranging from 260 to 420 GeV are excluded for a massless $\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$ for $\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{2} \rightarrow Z \tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$. For decays through an on-shell Higgs boson and for mass-splitting between $\tilde{\chi}^{\pm}_{1} / \tilde{\chi}^{0}_{2}$ and $\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$ as small as the Higgs boson mass, mass limits are improved by up to 40 GeV in the range of 200-260 GeV and 280-470 GeV compared to previous ATLAS constraints.