Signals of a superlight gravitino at the LHC

Abstract: Very light gravitinos could be produced at a sizeable rate at colliders and have been searched for in the mono-photon or mono-jet plus missing momentum signature. Strategies for enhancing the signal over background and interpretations of the experimental results are typically obtained within an effective field theory approach where all SUSY particles except the gravitino are heavy and are not produced resonantly. We extend this approach to a simplified model that includes squarks and gluinos in the TeV range. In such a case, the jet(s)-plus-missing-momentum signature can be generated through three different concurring mechanisms: gravitino-pair production with an extra jet, associated gravitino production with a squark or a gluino, or squark/gluino pair production with their subsequent decay to a gravitino and a jet. By using a matrix-element parton-shower merging procedure, we take into account all the relevant production processes consistently, explore the SUSY parameter space with the LHC Run-I data set, and give prospects for the Run II. We also consider the reach of other signatures involving electroweak particles, e.g., the mono-photon, -Z, or -W plus missing momentum. The current mono-jet and mono-photon LHC analyses are interpreted to set a lower bound on the gravitino mass. We show how the limit of m3/2> 1.7 × 10−13 GeV obtained in the effective field theory hypothesis is modified when the squarks and/or the gluino are in the TeV range.