A SEARCH FOR COMPRESSED MASS SPECTRUM SUPERSYMMETRY VIA ELECTROWEAK VECTOR BOSON FUSION PROCESSES IN PROTON-PROTON COLLISIONS AT THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

Abstract

A search for Supersymmetry (SUSY) produced via electroweak vector boson fusion (VBF) processes using proton-proton collision data is presented. This analysis probes compressed mass spectrum SUSY scenarios in which the mass gap between the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) and the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) is small ($\Delta m <$ 75 GeV). VBF is characterized by the presence of two high momentum jets present in opposite hemispheres of the detector, with a large pseudorapidity gap between the two jets. The search final state consists of two VBF jets and 0, 1, or 2 leptons (with charge of opposite sign and like sign). The data were recorded at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the CERN LHC with the CMS detector in 2016-2018, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb$^{-1}$. Upper limits on cross sections for the production of electroweakinos are obtained in the context of simplified models.