Signatures for Squarks in the Light Gaugino Scenario

Abstract

When the gluino is light and long lived, missing energy is a poor signature for both squarks and gluinos. Instead, squark pair production leads to events with $\ge 4$ jets. If a chargino can decay to squark and quark, missing energy is also a poor signature for the chargino. Properties of 4-jet events originating from squarks are discussed. ALEPH's preliminary report of an excess of 4-jet events, with a peak in total dijet mass of 109 GeV, is analyzed in terms of $S_q S_q^*$ and chargino pair production.