# Decay chains

As the production of s-quarks and gluinos is favored if kinematically allowed, these particles would start the decay chain in most cases. In the case in which such superparticles were relatively light, the decay chain would be short, and the subsequent possible decays should be few.
Instead, if s-quarks and gluinos were very massive, it would be necessary to consider a larger number of possible decays. Thus, knowing the decay modes of each superparticle, one can construct all possible chains starting, for example, from a s-quark or a gluino.

A decay chain could be
$\tilde q \rightarrow q\tilde\chi_2^0 \rightarrow q l^\pm \tilde l^\mp \rightarrow q l^\pm l^\mp \tilde \chi_1^0$,

as depicted here

with $l=e^\pm,\mu^\pm$, neglecting the $\tau^\pm$ that behave differently from other leptons.

Final particles are a stable particle, i.e. the neutralino $\tilde{\chi}_0^1$, two leptons and two quarks; quarks (except the <em>top</em>) run into hadronization and thus give rise to jets. These are the most general features common to the final states
of processes for production of superparticles, once admitted the conservation of R-parity.

The final state is therefore characterized by:

• high transverse momentum jets,
• high missing energy (due to the $\tilde{\chi}_0^1$ escaping the detection),
• high transverse momentum leptons produced by high mass states.

The channel with the greatest potential for discovery must be the most inclusive and constituted by large missing transverse energy and at least two jets, in the final states. A further worthy aspect is the possibility of measuring the masses of supersymmetric particles by reconstructing the kinematics of the decay.