Probing stops in the coannihilation region at the HL-LHC: a comparative study of different processes

In the minimal supersymmetric model, the coannihilation of the lighter stop $\tilde{t}_1$ and bino-like dark matter $χ$ provides a feasible way to accommodate the correct dark matter relic abundance. In this scenario, due to the compressed masses, $\tilde{t}_1$ merely appears as missing energy at the LHC and thus the pair production of $\tilde{t}_1$ can only be probed by requiring an associated energetic jet. Meanwhile, since $\tilde{t}_2$ and $\tilde{b}_1$ are correlated in mass and mixing with $\tilde{t}_1$, the production of $\tilde{t}_2\tilde{t}_2^*$ or $\tilde{b}_1\tilde{b}_1^*$, each of which dominantly decays into $\tilde{t}_1$ plus $Z$, $h$ or $W$ boson, may serve as a complementary probe. We examine all these processes at the HL-LHC and find that the $2σ$ sensitivity to $χ$ mass can be as large as about 570 GeV, 600 GeV and 1.1 TeV from the production process of $\tilde{t}_1\tilde{t}_1^*+{\rm jet}$, $\tilde{t}_2\tilde{t}_2^*$ and $\tilde{b}_1\tilde{b}_1^*$, respectively.