Next-to-Leading Order Simulation of Slepton Pair Production

The next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections to Drell-Yan slepton pair production are merged with parton shower evolution via the POWHEG method in Herwig++. The NLO corrections at the level of event generation alter the shape of observables in a non-global way, thereby potentially affecting the fraction of signal events which pass crucial transverse momentum cuts on decay products and missing transverse momentum requirements on events. This effect is not captured by an overall rescaling of the cross section and can have repercussions on the reach of LHC searches.