Probing compressed bottom squarks with boosted jets and shape analysis

A feasibility study is presented for the search of the lightest bottom squark (sbottom) in a compressed scenario, where its mass difference from the lightest neutralino is 5 GeV. Two separate studies are performed: 1) a final state containing two vector-boson-fusion (VBF)-like tagged jets, missing transverse energy, and zero or one b-tagged jet; and 2) a final state consisting of an initial state radiation jet, missing transverse energy, and at least one b-tagged jet. An analysis of the shape of the missing transverse energy distribution for signal and background is performed in each case, leading to significant improvement over a cut and count analysis, especially after incorporating the consideration of systematic uncertainty and pileup. The shape analysis in the VBF-like tagged jet study leads to a 3σ exclusion potential of sbottoms with mass up to 530(462) GeV for an integrated luminosity of 300 fb-1 at 14 TeV, with 5% systematic uncertainty and PU=0(50).