Search for heavy, long lived charged particles with large specific ionisation and low-beta in 140 fb-1 of p-p collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV using the ATLAS experiment

This paper presents a search for hypothetical massive, charged, long-lived particles with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using an integrated luminosity of 140 fb-1 of proton–proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV. These particles are expected to move significantly slower than the speed of light and should be identifiable by their high transverse momenta and anomalously large specific ionisation losses dEdx in combination with low-beta measured by Time-of-Flight (ToF). Trajectories reconstructed solely by the inner tracking system, a dEdx measurement in the pixel detector layers and a ToF measured by the calorimeter system provide sensitivity to particles with lifetimes down to O(3) ns with a mass ranging from 150 GeV to 3 TeV. Interpretations for pair-production of R-hadrons, charginos and staus in scenarios of supersymmetry compatible with these particles being long-lived are presented, with mass limits extending beyond those from previous searches in broad ranges of lifetime.