April 1998 # Discovery potential for supersymmetry in CMS For the CMS Collaboration S. Abdullin, Ž. Antunović, F. Charles, D. Denegri, U. Dydak, M. Dželalija, V. Genchev, D. Graham, I. Iashvili, A. Kharchilava, R. Kinnunen, S. Kunori, K. Mazumdar, C. Racca, L. Rurua, N. Stepanov, J. Womersley ## Abstract This work summarizes and puts in an overall perspective studies done within CMS concerning the discovery potential for squarks and gluinos, sleptons, charginos and neutralinos, SUSY dark matter, lightest Higgs, sparticle mass determination methods and the detector design optimisation in view of SUSY searches. It represents the status of our understanding of these subjects as of Summer 1997. As a benchmark model we used the minimal supergravity-inspired supersymmetric standard model (mSUGRA) with a stable LSP. Discovery of supersymmetry at the LHC should be relatively straightforward. It may occur through the observation of a large excesses of events in missing E_T plus jets, or with one or more isolated leptons. An excess of trilepton events or of isolated dileptons with missing E_T, exhibiting a characteristic signature in the l^+l^- invariant mass distribution could also be the first manifestation of SUSY production. Squarks and gluinos can be discovered for masses in excess of 2 TeV. Charginos and neutralinos can be discovered from an excess of events in dilepton or trilepton final states. Inclusive searches can give early indications from their copious production in squark and gluino cascade decays. Indirect evidence for sleptons can be obtained also from inclusive dilepton studies. Isolation requirements and a jet veto would allow detection of both, the direct chargino/neutralino production and of directly-produced sleptons. Squark and gluino production may also represent a copious source of Higgs bosons through cascade decays. The lightest SUSY Higgs h → b b̄ may be reconstructed with a signal/background ratio of order 1 thanks to hard cuts on E_T^miss justified by escaping LSP's. The lightest supersymmetric particle of SUSY models with conserved R-parity represents a very good candidate for the cosmological dark matter. The region of parameter space where this is true is well-covered by our searches, at least for tanβ = 2. If supersymmetry exists at electroweak scale it could hardly escape detection in CMS, and the study of supersymmetry will form a central part of our physics program.April 1998 # Discovery potential for supersymmetry in CMS For the CMS Collaboration S. Abdullin, Ž. Antunović, F. Charles, D. Denegri, U. Dydak, M. Dželalija, V. Genchev, D. Graham, I. Iashvili, A. Kharchilava, R. Kinnunen, S. Kunori, K. Mazumdar, C. Racca, L. Rurua, N. Stepanov, J. Womersley ## Abstract This work summarizes and puts in an overall perspective studies done within CMS concerning the discovery potential for squarks and gluinos, sleptons, charginos and neutralinos, SUSY dark matter, lightest Higgs, sparticle mass determination methods and the detector design optimisation in view of SUSY searches. It represents the status of our understanding of these subjects as of Summer 1997. As a benchmark model we used the minimal supergravity-inspired supersymmetric standard model (mSUGRA) with a stable LSP. Discovery of supersymmetry at the LHC should be relatively straightforward. It may occur through the observation of a large excesses of events in missing E_T plus jets, or with one or more isolated leptons. An excess of trilepton events or of isolated dileptons with missing E_T, exhibiting a characteristic signature in the l^+l^- invariant mass distribution could also be the first manifestation of SUSY production. Squarks and gluinos can be discovered for masses in excess of 2 TeV. Charginos and neutralinos can be discovered from an excess of events in dilepton or trilepton final states. Inclusive searches can give early indications from their copious production in squark and gluino cascade decays. Indirect evidence for sleptons can be obtained also from inclusive dilepton studies. Isolation requirements and a jet veto would allow detection of both, the direct chargino/neutralino production and of directly-produced sleptons. Squark and gluino production may also represent a copious source of Higgs bosons through cascade decays. The lightest SUSY Higgs h → b b̄ may be reconstructed with a signal/background ratio of order 1 thanks to hard cuts on E_T^miss justified by escaping LSP's. The lightest supersymmetric particle of SUSY models with conserved R-parity represents a very good candidate for the cosmological dark matter. The region of parameter space where this is true is well-covered by our searches, at least for tanβ = 2. If supersymmetry exists at electroweak scale it could hardly escape detection in CMS, and the study of supersymmetry will form a central part of our physics program.