Signatures for squarks in the light gaugino scenario

When the gluino is light and long lived, missing energy is a poor signature for both squarks and gluinos. Instead, squark pair production leads to events with ≥4 jets. If a chargino can decay to squark and quark, missing energy is also a poor signature for the chargino. Properties of 4-jet events originating from squarks and charginos are discussed. ALEPH’s preliminary report of an excess of 4-jet events with a peak in total dijet mass of 109 GeV (not confirmed by other experiments) is analyzed in terms of s_qS^*_q and chargino pair production; concomitant signatures are noted.