Search for supersymmetric particle pair production in final states with two oppositely charged leptons and large missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

Abstract

A search is presented for direct production of pairs of supersymmetric particles in final states with a pair of oppositely charged leptons (electrons or muons) and missing transverse momentum. The analysis uses proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$, recorded with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The observed data do not exhibit any excess over the standard model predictions. Constraints are derived on chargino, top squark, and slepton pair production in the context of simplified models with $R$-parity conservation. In these models, the neutralino is taken to be the lightest supersymmetric particle. For chargino production, an exclusion region in the chargino-neutralino mass plane is determined, which extends to chargino masses of 1120 GeV and neutralino masses of 490 GeV. For mass splittings between the lighter top squark and the neutralino ranging from the W boson mass to the top quark mass, top squark masses up to 500$-$540 GeV are excluded. Slepton masses are excluded up to 700 GeV for a massless neutralino.