TRILEPTONS FROM CHARGINO-NEUTRALINO PRODUCTION AT THE CERN LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

We study direct production of charginos and neutralinos at the CERN La rge Hadron Collider. We simulate all channels of chargino and neutrali no production using ISAJET 7.07. The best mode for observing such proc esses appears to be pp --> W1Z2 --> 3l + is-not-an-element-of(T). We e valuate signal expectations and background levels, and suggest cuts to optimize the signal. The trilepton mode should be viable provided m(g ) less-than-or-similar-to 50 - 600 GeV; above this mass, the decay mod es Z2 --> Z1Z and Z2 --> H(l)Z1 become dominant, spoiling the signal. In this first case, the leptonic branching fraction for Z decay is sma ll and additional background from WZ is present, while in the second c ase, the trilepton signal is essentially absent. For smaller values of m(g), the trilepton signal should be visible above background, especi ally if \mu\ congruent-to m(g) and m(l) much less than m(q), in which case the leptonic decays of Z2 are enhanced. Distributions in dilepton mass m(llBAR) can yield direct information on neutralino masses due t o the distribution cutoff at m(Z2) - m(Z1). Other distributions that m ay lead to an additional constraint amongst the chargino and neutralin o masses are also examined.