Impact of bosonic decays on the search for stau_2 and tau-sneutrino

Abstract

We perform a detailed study of the decays of the heavier tau slepton (stau_2) and tau-sneutrino (snu_tau) in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We show that the decays into Higgs or gauge bosons, i.e. stau_2 -> stau_1 + (h^0, H^0, A^0 or Z^0), stau_2 -> snu_tau + (H^- or W^-), and snu_tau -> stau_1 + (H^+ or W^+), can be very important due to the sizable tau Yukawa coupling and large mixing parameters of stau. Compared to the decays into fermions, such as stau_2 -> tau + neutralino_i and stau_2 -> nu_tau + chargino_j^-, these bosonic decay modes can have significantly different decay distributions. This could have an important influence on the search for stau_2 and snu_tau and the determination of the MSSM parameters at future colliders.