131 PARTICLE SEARCHES AT PEP Richard Prepost Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, U. S.A. Abstract The status of the search for new particles at the PEP storage ring is reviewed. The results of searches forsupersymmetric particles by the MAC and MARK II groups are presented and mass limits are given. The HRS, MAC, and MARK II limits for monojet production are given and the results are interpreted in terms of limits on Higgs particle and heavy neutral lepton production. 132 INTRODUCTION The status of particle searches at the PEP storage ring is reviewed. The searches that will be discussed are the MAC and MARK II searches for supersymmetric particles and the HRS, MAC, and MARK II searches for monojet events. The searches for supersymmetric particle production are of two kinds. Both MAC and MARK II have made a search based on single electron spectra which is a search for real selectron production. Results based on these searches have been previously published and the most recent results are presented. The MAC search for photino pair production based on single photon spectra is reviewed and the most recent results are presented. Photino pair production proceeds through selectron exchange and therefore the results are sensitive to selectron as well as photino masses. New searches for monojet production by the HRS, MAC, and MARK II groups are then described. The wide interest in the UAl monojet events has led to various speculations for an explanation. It has been proposed that the monojet events may arise from decay zo into a pair of Higgs particles, one of which decays into a jet while the other lighter one escapes undetected. The electron positron colliders at present energies while not yet capable of making real particles nevertheless can have reactions that are energetically allowed zo proceed through virtual production. Since the CERN monojet events have a relatively z0 light mass,the PEP and PETRA colliders are sensitive to such processes. The PEP results z0 of this search for monojet like events is described, and the results are interpreted in terms of limits on Higgs particle masses and also, for the MAC case, as a limit on the production of heavy neutral leptons. SEARCHES FOR SUPERSYMMETRIC PARTICLES 1) Introduction The searches for supersymmetric particle production at PEP which will be reported here are based on the study of single electron and single photon spectra. The reactions which have been studied are: e+e- --> e±e'F,:Y --> e'F and (2) e+e- --> .:Y.:Y"'I --> "'I· The searches involve (1) triggering the detector on either a single electron or a single photon. Reaction 1 is a process for the production of a real single selectron and hence is limited to Reaction 2, m; :"::: y'S. on the other hand, is the radiative production of a real photino pair via selectron exchange and hence sets bounds on combinations of the selectron and photino masses. However, for the special case of massless photinos, the limit on the selectron mass is limited only by backgrounds and luminosity and not by the beam energy. 2) Single Production e Limits on the selectron mass fromreaction 1 result from an analysis which assumes that the .:Y is stable and not seen in the detector. Calculations for this process'> also show that 133 the e± which accompanies the e in the final state tends to escape undetected down the beam pipe. The only observed final state particle is then the e'f from the e'f decay. This electron has high energy ;;/2 and an almost flat angular distribution. The reaction is sensitive i::: m 2> to 2Ebea depending on the � mass. MAC and MARK n•> , using this technique, me :::; m have previously reported lower limits on the e mass of 22.4 and 22.2 GeV/c2 respectively, at the 95% confidence level. This report updates the MAC search to a data sample three times larger than previously reported. Background single electron events can come from ee"'I final states where only one of the electrons is detected. If the detector is inefficient at detecting particles or has dead regions, this background can be several orders of magnitude larger than the expected signal. However, if the undetected particles are constrained to be at small angles relative to the beam axis then momentun conservation limits the energy distribution of the observed electron. A search region for the single electrons can then be defined so that the ee"'I background is neglible. More serious backgrounds result fromdecays of TT, TT"/, and eeTT events in which most of the energy is taken by the neutrinos. one T decays to a visible electron and two neutrinos, If and the other decays to neutrinos and a soft electron or pion which escapes down the beam pipe, then this event is indistinguishable from the SUSY process. This background has been calculated by Monte Carlo technique. The results of these searches are interpreted aslimits on the massof the selectron assuming a masslessphotino, or as correlated limits on the photino and selectron masses. Fig. 1 shows the MARK II result as a contour in photino versus selectron mass for the two cases of degenerate and nondegenerate left and righthanded selectron masses. The 90% confidence level limit for the case of zero photino mass and degenerate right and left handed selectrons is 22 GeV. The MAC updated result based on a sample of 110 pb-1 gives an upper limit on the single electron cross section in the search region of <0.017 p b at the 90% confidence level. The corresponding mass limit is 25 GeV/c2 assuming If then me > men= mh. mh �men the lower limit on the lighter e mass is 24 GeV/c2• Future increases in the MAC data sample will only marginally improve the mass limit. Further improvements on the e mass limit will e necessarily be made at higher beam energies or with different reactions. 3.) � Pair Production e+e- > Reaction 2, ---> ��"'/ involving the detection of a single photon,' requires only that the photino is non interacting in the detector. This reaction also permits m;y = 0 as a possibility, but in general the mass limits set by the experiment will be a contour with me and m;y as variables. The most recent MAC result for this process is described below. 134 There are potential backgrounds to the above process from radiative electromagnetic processes where charged particles are produced at angles smaller than the detector acceptance but where the photon is detected. These backgrounds include radiative Bhabha scattering and radiative tau pair production. The process e+ e- is a potential background if --> Ill only one of the photons is emitted into the detector acceptance. There can also be single photons resulting from beam gas interactions and beam spill. Finally, the radiative neutrino pair production process e+e- is indistinguishable from the process. However --> 1viJ 1::Y::Y it is very desirable to also measure the cross section for this process. The cross section for radiative photino pair production has been calculated by several authors . ., The cross section for the MAC acceptance is shown in Fig. 2 for several values of the selectron mass. The radiative neutrino pair production cross section is also shown for comparison. •l At PEP energies, photino production is the dominant process for selectron masses less than about 50 Ge V / c2• The experiment is accomplished by defining acceptance criteria for the detected photon and demanding no other activity in the detector. Since the detector acceptance goes to zero below some minimum angle, this condition corresponds to setting a minimum veto angle which in turn corresponds to a minimum E.l for the detected photon. The analysis cuts require an electromagnetic shower with cos ll < 0.77 and an energy j l greater than 1 GeV. Below about 2 GeV the trigger efficiency forsingle photons begins to fall off. In addition, there can be no charged tracks in the central drift chamber. Further cuts on the electromagnetic shower profile and vertex constraints are also made. These cuts are all tuned experimentally using single electrons and tagged photons from radiative Bhabha scattering. Two data samples were used for the analysis. For the first data set of 36 pb-1 the luminosity and the veto conditions were the same as used for the single search. The second e data set of 80 pb-1 was taken after the installation of a special small angle tagging system which covers the region 5° 10° with lead-proportional chamber shower counter and :<:::'. II :<:::'. lead-scintillator shower counter arrays installed specifically for this experiment. The location of this veto package relative to the main detector is shown in Fig. 3, and the segmentation of the proportional chambers as well as their placement relative to the lead absorber is shown in Fig. 13. The veto calorimeter energy cut was taken to be 0.25 GeV. The observed E.l distibution of the detected photons for the case of the larger llveto 5°) ( 2: data sample is shown in Fig. 4 together with the calculated yield from radiative Bhabha scattering. The search regions were taken to be E.l 4.3 GeV and E.l 3.0 GeV for the two > > data samples respectively. The overall trigger and analysis efficiencies for the two samples were approximately 65%. The small angle veto inefficiency was determined to be �10-4. 135 The most important backgrounds were calculated to be: �0.5 event, rf''Y � 0.05 Vii'"f event, and ee'Y � 0.1 event. One event from the second data set is observed in the combined search regions at EJ.= 5.3 GeV.