SUSY Highlights: Current Results and Future Prospects

CMS Collaborations); Jory Sonneveld (on behalf of the ATLAS

SUSY Highlights: Current Results and Future Prospects

T0 review · 0 major / 5 minor · reviewed 2026-08-06 · deepseek-v4-flash

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Pith's one-line read After the full LHC Run 2 dataset, the ATLAS and CMS supersymmetry search programs have observed several 2–3 sigma excesses but no statistically significant evidence of new physics, with the deviations best interpreted as background…

desk verdict A faithful, clearly written conference summary of LHC SUSY searches; no new result, but an honest and accurate status snapshot with a couple of minor presentation slips. read the letter →

arxiv 2507.16400 v1 pith:MMHF2OB4 submitted 2025-07-22 hep-ex hep-ph

Jory Sonneveld (on behalf of the ATLAS , CMS Collaborations) This is my paper · ORCID

classification hep-exhep-ph

keywords supersymmetryLHCRun2ATLASCMSmissingtransverseenergylong-livedparticleselectroweakinoR-parityviolation

verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

The pith

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The reading

This review of the LHC Run 2 supersymmetry search program by the two large multipurpose experiments aims to establish where the field stands after the complete Run 2 dataset. Despite many new search strategies and several observed excesses of two to three standard deviations, the paper concludes that there is still no clear sign of new physics. The authors survey strong sparticle production, electroweak sparticle production, and long-lived particle searches, and interpret the deviations as likely background fluctuations. This matters because it defines the status of supersymmetry as a candidate theory beyond the standard model and sets the stage for the higher-statistics runs to come.

What carries the argument

The central mechanism is the comparison of observed event counts with standard model background predictions in the LHC collision data, quantified by statistical significance. The searches are organised by final-state signatures: multijets plus missing transverse momentum for strong production, multileptons for electroweak production, and displaced tracks, disappearing tracks, or heavy stable charged particles for long-lived sparticles. The techniques that carry the individual analyses include Dalitz plots, data scouting, recursive jigsaw reconstruction, charm tagging, and pixel dE/dx ionization measurements.

What would settle it

If, in the same search regions that produced the 2 sigma, 3 sigma, and 2.4 sigma excesses, the LHC Run 3 data showed the excesses growing as a real signal would, the paper's 'no clear sign of new physics' conclusion would be refuted; specifically, a 5 sigma deviation in the recursive jigsaw three-lepton search region would settle it.

Watch

Extended reading notes

Core claim

The paper's central claim is that after the full LHC Run 2, the ATLAS and CMS direct searches for supersymmetry show no statistically significant evidence for new physics. The supporting picture is a catalogue of null results and modest excesses: a $2\sigma$ excess in the tau-lepton strong production search, a small excess in sbottom pair production, a $3\sigma$ excess in the recursive jigsaw electroweakino search, and a $2.4\sigma$ excess in the stable charged particle search. None of these reaches the $5\sigma$ threshold, so the paper's summary reads that 'several excesses were observed, but there is still no clear sign of new physics.' The authors treat the excesses as consistent with standard model background fluctuations.

Load-bearing premise

The conclusion that the observed excesses are not signs of new physics rests on the untested assumption that the background estimates and systematic uncertainties in the cited ATLAS and CMS analyses are correct, so that the quoted significances of 2, 3, and 2.4 sigma really are statistical fluctuations.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

If the absence of a clear signal is correct, then strongly produced squarks and gluinos must be heavier than roughly a few TeV, or they decay through R-parity violating or long-lived channels that evade the classic missing-energy searches.
The observed 2–3 sigma excesses become targets for the next data-taking period: with more statistics they should either fade toward the background expectation or grow into a genuine signal.
The novel techniques showcased in these searches—recursive jigsaw reconstruction, data scouting, emerging jets, and dE/dx-based particle identification—will be standard tools for Run 3 and the high-luminosity LHC.
The projected Run 3 dataset of about 300 inverse femtobarns and the high-luminosity LHC's 3000 inverse femtobarns are expected to extend the mass reach for heavy sparticles and improve sensitivity to low-cross-section electroweak production.

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

If the excesses are truly fluctuations, the lack of light sparticles puts pressure on natural explanations of the Higgs mass, pointing toward fine-tuning or alternative symmetry-breaking mechanisms; this is an interpretation the paper does not itself develop.
A joint statistical analysis of all the excesses across different search channels, treating them as a family, could reveal whether they are correlated (as some new-physics models with multiple final states would predict) or independent fluctuations; no such combination is presented in the paper.
A direct way to test the paper's conclusion would be to repeat the same search-region selections on the first Run 3 data: if the 3 sigma jigsaw excess persists at a similar magnitude with several times more data, the background-fluctuation interpretation would become increasingly unlikely.
The paper's emphasis on long-lived particle signatures and R-parity violating models suggests that future supersymmetry searches may need to rely less on missing transverse energy and more on trigger-level tracking and data scouting, an implication the authors only hint at in the outlook.

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Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, and a circularity audit.

Desk Editor's Note

read the letter

Hi [name],

Quick take: this is a conference proceedings summary from ATLAS/CMS, not a research paper. If you go in expecting a new measurement or interpretation, you'll be disappointed; there is none. But as a status report it's accurate and useful. The central line in Section 6 — several excesses, no clear sign of new physics — is a fair synthesis of the cited results. Each excess (2σ, 3σ, 2.4σ) is attributed to a specific search, and the paper doesn't overclaim them.

What it does well: it covers a wide spread of search strategies — strong production, electroweak production, long-lived particles, emerging jets, RPV — and it gives concrete references for each. The descriptions of the techniques (recursive jigsaw, data scouting, pixel dE/dx) are concise and correctly placed. For someone wanting a quick map of where the LHC SUSY program stands at the end of Run 2, this is a decent starting point.

Soft spots. There's a factual typo in Section 1: 'higgs boson partners called gauginos' — should be 'higgsinos'. Minor, but it appears in a paper that people may copy. The abstract says 'several observations of deviations from the standard model' without immediately noting all are sub-2.5σ; the body does qualify them, so it's a presentation issue, not a substantive one. The multiple excesses are not combined or corrected for look-elsewhere effects, but the paper never claims they are anything more than individual local excesses; for a summary that's acceptable. Also, the 'future prospects' sections are brief and somewhat generic, but that's typical for a talk.

Is there anything load-bearing wrong? No. The math and citation pattern check out; every claim traces to a published or public ATLAS/CMS result. The paper is careful not to derive new limits or reinterpret results beyond what the collaborations did.

Who is this for? Grad students or colleagues who want a 20-minute orientation to the Run 2 SUSY search landscape, or a citation anchor for a proceedings. It doesn't deserve a full referee cycle as a research article — there's nothing to referee beyond the summary's accuracy, which appears fine. I would not cite it in my own work; I'd cite the underlying searches. For a reading group, it's a fine warm-up but not a discussion centerpiece.

Recommendation: desk-appropriate for a proceedings; don't waste referee time. If it were submitted to a journal as a review, a light editorial check would handle it.

Referee Report

0 major / 5 minor

Summary. This conference proceedings paper, authored by Jory Sonneveld on behalf of ATLAS and CMS, summarizes the status of supersymmetry searches after LHC Run 2. It reviews strong and electroweak sparticle production, long-lived particle signatures, and novel search techniques, and it closes with future prospects for Run 3 and the HL-LHC. The central scientific claim, stated in Section 6, is that several excesses (2σ, 3σ, and 2.4σ) were observed in specific ATLAS and CMS searches but there is still no clear sign of new physics. The paper does not perform any new statistical combination or derivation; it reports and contextualizes published results.

Significance. As a review article, the paper is a useful and compact survey of the ATLAS/CMS SUSY search program, accurately attributing each quoted excess to a specific search with its original significance and explicitly avoiding the claim that these excesses are incompatible with the Standard Model. Its main value lies in the synthesis of disparate search strategies and in the clear statement that, despite several local deviations, no global evidence for supersymmetry has emerged. The conclusion is appropriately hedged and consistent with the cited primary literature. The paper does not introduce new physics results, so its significance is primarily pedagogical and archival rather than transformative.

minor comments (5)

[Section 1] The sentence 'The supersymmetric electroweak gauge boson partners called gauginos and higgs boson partners called gauginos mix to states called neutralinos and charginos' contains a factual typo: the higgs boson partners should be called higgsinos, not gauginos.
[Abstract] The abstract states that the talk covers 'several observations of deviations from the standard model' without immediately qualifying that these deviations are not statistically significant. Section 6 provides the needed qualification, but the abstract would be less misleading if it echoed that wording.
[Section 5] The text says 'run 3 will start' and describes the high-luminosity LHC as 'now planned in 2026.' This phrasing is inconsistent with the July 2025 arXiv posting date, since Run 3 has already begun. The manuscript appears to be a write-up of a 2018-era talk; either the text should be updated or the paper should be clearly dated as a historical proceedings.
[References] Reference 32, 'Phys. Let. B.10 055 (2018)arXiv:1808.04095,' contains a malformed journal name and volume; it should be corrected to the proper Physics Letters B citation.
[Section 4] In the discussion of the ATLAS pixel dE/dx search, the sentence 'only events with particles with 0.3 < βγ <0.9 were used' could be clarified to indicate that this is the selection on the particle's βγ, and that the paper does not define βγ in the text (though it is standard notation).

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged · score 0.0 of 10

No significant circularity: this conference summary reports and attributes ATLAS/CMS results without attempting a derivation that could reduce to its inputs.

full rationale

The paper makes no original derivation. Its central assertion in Section 6 ('Several excesses were observed, but there is still no clear sign of new physics') is a qualitative synthesis of cited ATLAS and CMS searches. Each reported excess is tied to a specific primary analysis (e.g., the 2 sigma excess in the tau search [11], the 3 sigma excess in the recursive jigsaw electroweakino search [15], and the 2.4 sigma excess in the ATLAS stable charged particle search [32]), and the quoted significances are the published values, not new computations. No parameter is fitted here and then renamed as a prediction; no uniqueness theorem or prior result by the present author is invoked to force a conclusion. The paper explicitly distinguishes observed deviations from evidence for new physics, so its conclusion is appropriately hedged. The collaboration self-citations are primary experimental sources, not unverified premises, so they do not create a circular burden. The only identifiable flaw is a typo in Section 1 ('higgs boson partners called gauginos' instead of 'higgsinos'), which has no bearing on the summary's logic. Because the claims are references to external, primary experimental results rather than derivations from assumptions internal to this paper, there is no circular step and the circularity score is 0.

Assumptions & free parameters 0 free parameters · 1 assumptions · 0 invented entities

This review introduces no free parameters, no new axioms beyond trusting the cited experiments, and no new entities.

assumptions (1)

domain assumption The cited ATLAS/CMS publications are accurately summarized, including their background estimations and significance calculations.
The paper's conclusion depends entirely on the reliability of the experimental papers it reviews; no primary analysis is performed.

how reviews work

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Cite this review

Pith. "Pith review of SUSY Highlights: Current Results and Future Prospects." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/MMHF2OB4

@misc{pith2026250716400,
  author       = {Pith},
  title        = {Pith review of: SUSY Highlights: Current Results and Future Prospects},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/MMHF2OB4}},
  note         = {Machine review of arXiv:2507.16400}
}

read the original abstract

At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, one of the goals of colliding protons together is to search for new physics. Supersymmetry (SUSY), a popular theory of physics beyond the well-established standard model of particle physics, is a large part of the search program of the ATLAS and CMS multi-purpose detectors located on opposite sides of the 27-kilometer LHC ring. So far no sign of supersymmetry has been found in the most obvious search channels such as all-hadronic searches with jets and missing energy. This led to the development of many new search strategies. A selection of current results, including several observations of deviations from the standard model and novel search techniques, as well as future prospects are discussed in this talk.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Reference graph

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Pith tools

Reviewed August 6, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.

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