On the hunt for scalar bottom quarks

The ATLAS collaboration just released new results in the search for the supersymmetric scalar partner of the bottom quark with major contributions from the group of Dr. Alexander Mann at the chair of elementary particle physics. The results from this search for supersymmetry are documented in a paper with the title "Search for bottom-squark pair production in pp collision events at √s=13 TeV with hadronically decaying τ-leptons, b-jets and missing transverse momentum using the ATLAS detector". This paper has been submitted to Physics Review D and is already available as a preprint from the arXiv webpage.

Making use of a sophisticated model to account for the possibility of jets faking tau leptons in the Standard Model background, the new search complements another recent search by ATLAS that looks for new phenomena in final states with b-jets and missing transverse momentum, where also the elusive Dark Matter particles could show up.

The plot above shows the individual expected and observed exclusion-limit contours at 95% confidence level obtained for the mass of the supersymmetric partner of the bottom quark (on the horizontal axis) and the mass of the second-lightest supersymmetric neutralino (on the vertical axis). The full set of plots from the publication can be found on the official ATLAS webpage. A nice summary of these results can also be found in this ATLAS briefing.