title: Removing gaps in the exclusion of top squark parameter space.
abstract: Light stops are a hallmark of the most natural realizations of weak-scale supersymmetry. While stops have been extensively searched for, there remain open gaps around and below the top mass, due to similarities of stop and top signals with current statistics. We propose a new fast-track avenue to improve light stop searches for R-parity-conserving supersymmetry by comparing top cross section measurements to the theoretical prediction. Stop masses below ∼180  GeV can now be ruled out for a light neutralino. The possibility of a stop signal contaminating the top mass measurement is also briefly addressed.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Teilchenphysik und Kosmologie, RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Czakon
authors.affiliation: Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mitov
authors.affiliation: Theoretical Physics Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Papucci
authors.affiliation: Theoretical Physics Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA.
authors.forename: Joshua T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Ruderman
authors.affiliation: DESY, Notkestrasse 85, D-22607 Hamburg, Germany and Theory Division, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Weiler