Long-Lived Staus at Neutrino Telescopes

Abstract

We perform an exhaustive study of the role neutrino telescopes could play in the discovery and exploration of supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model with a long-lived stau next-to-lightest superparticle. These staus are produced in pairs by cosmic neutrino interactions in the Earth matter. We show that the background of stau events to the standard muon signal is negligible and plays no role in the determination of the cosmic neutrino flux. On the other hand, one can expect up to 50 pair events per year in a cubic kilometer detector such as IceCube, if the superpartner mass spectrum and the high-energy cosmic neutrino flux are close to experimental bounds.