Can the Aleph Four-Jet Excess be Explained in a Supersymmetric Model with R-Parity Violation?

Abstract

We investigate the possibility that the excess of four-jet events in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collisions at LEP-1.5 which has been reported by the ALEPH Collaboration could be due to the production of charginos or neutralinos, followed by their decay into quark jets through baryon number-violating (${\lambda }^{\prime \prime }$) couplings. An estimate at the parton level shows, however, that these events cannot be due to neutralinos because of the low cross-section, and is unlikely to be due to the production of chargino pairs because of the largely different event shapes.

Comments: 31 pages, Latex, uses epsf, extensively revised and updated