Supersymmetry, the ILC, and the LHC inverse problem

Abstract

We report the results of the first large scale examination of the MSSM parameter space at the International Linear Collider (ILC). In particular, we address the question of whether or not the ILC can help to resolve the LHC Inverse Problem within this context. We examine 242 randomly generated but representative points in the MSSM parameter space which were found to lead to somewhat difficult signatures at the LHC. Including full Standard Model backgrounds and a fast detector simulation, our study finds that only roughly one third of these scenarios lead to visible signatures of some kind with a significance ⩾5 at the ILC with s=500 GeV. However, kinematically accessible charged sparticles are visible over 90% of the time. Furthermore, we examine these points in the parameter space pairwise and find that only one third of the pairs produce distinguishable signatures at the ILC at 5σ. Going to a 1 TeV center of mass energy would substantially improve this situation since the dominant limitations are kinematic in origin.