LHC REACH FOR GAUGE MEDIATED SUPERSYMMETRY BREAKING MODELS VIA PROMPTPHOTON CHANNELS

We evaluate the supersymmetry reach of the Large Hadron Collider withi n the gauge-mediated low energy supersymmetry breaking framework, assu ming that a neutralino is the second lightest sparticle and that it de cays promptly into a gravitino which escapes detection. We find that t he maximum reach is obtained via a search for inclusive gamma gamma E-T events coming dominantly from chargino and neutralino production. Assuming an integrated luminosity of 10 fb(-1), we find that LHC exper iments will be able to probe values of the model parameter Lambda less than or similar to 400 TeV, corresponding to m((g) over tilde) less t han or equal to 2.8 TeV. A measure of the model parameter,I may be pos sible from the photon p(T) spectrum. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. Al l rights reserved.