Search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with tau leptons in √s=13TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with at least two hadronically decaying tau leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb- 1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the expected Standard Model background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] pair production and of [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] and [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] production in simplified models where the neutralinos and charginos decay solely via intermediate left-handed staus and tau sneutrinos, and the mass of the τ~Lstate is set to be halfway between the masses of the [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] and the [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.]. Chargino masses up to 630 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level in the scenario of direct production of [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] for a massless [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.]. Common [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] and [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] masses up to 760 GeV are excluded in the case of production of [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] and [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] assuming a massless [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.]. Exclusion limits for additional benchmark scenarios with large and small mass-splitting between the [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] and the [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] are also studied by varying the τ~Lmass between the masses of the [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] and the [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.].