Gluino signals in 4jet events and vertex tagging at LEP1

Abstract

Heavy flavour tagging provides a broad range of possibilities in testing QCD features at LEP. We present here a study of 4jets events at LEP I where the so-called light gluinos could be directly produced. We show that microvertex techniques offer a unique chance to exploit simple kinematical distributions in order to optimise the signal coming from gluino production with respect to the background of ordinary QCD events. Our results indicate that experimental analyses along the lines suggested here can exclude or reveal the presence of a gluino for masses up to 10 GeV and lifetimes below 10$^{-9}$ sec. We also point out that a large fraction of gluino events could decay in configurations carrying large missing energy, so to escape the usual selection criteria of 4jet samples. In our study, mass effects of quarks and gluinos have been taken into account exactly. Our results are independent from both the jet algorithm and its resolution parameter.}