Search for nearly mass-degenerate higgsinos using low-momentum mildly-displaced tracks in pp collisions at √(s) = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Higgsinos with masses near the electroweak scale can solve the hierarchy problem and provide a dark matter candidate, while detecting them at the LHC remains challenging if their mass-splitting is 𝒪(1 GeV). This Letter presents a novel search for nearly mass-degenerate higgsinos in events with an energetic jet, missing transverse momentum, and a low-momentum track with a significant transverse impact parameter using 140 fb^-1 of proton-proton collision data at √(s) = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment. For the first time since LEP, a range of mass-splittings between the lightest charged and neutral higgsinos from 0.3 GeV to 0.9 GeV is excluded at 95 higgsino mass.