Measuring the SUSY Mass Scale at the LHC

An effective mass scale for supersymmetric particles is defined and techniques for its measurement at the LHC discussed. Monte Carlo results show that, for jets + missing ET events, a variable constructed from the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of all reconstructed jets together with missing ET provides in many cases the most accurate measurement of the mass scale (intrinsic precision ~ 2.1 % for mSUGRA models). The overall precision with which the mass scale could be measured after given periods of LHC running and for given classes of SUSY models is calculated. The technique is extended to measurements of the total SUSY particle production cross section.