Chargino production at the ILC

The lighter chargino, $\widetilde{\chi}_1^{\pm}$, is a prime candidate to be the next-to-lightest SUSY particle (the NLSP). Several analyses of $\widetilde{\chi}_1^{\pm}$ pair-production at the ILC, at specific model-points, have been performed, showing that detection and property-determination is possible, even for very difficult cases. However, no recent studies have evaluated the reach of the ILC to detect $\widetilde{\chi}_1^{\pm}$ pair production in general. In this study, cross sections for $\widetilde{\chi}_1^{\pm}$ pair production at the ILC were evaluated within a wide range of parameters. The aim was to determine the conditions for the lowest cross sections and compare these worst-case values with an estimation of the cross section limit for the observation of the lightest charginos at the ILC. The estimated limits were extrapolated from the studies performed at LEP, which can also be regarded as a worst-case scenario, since the tremendous advances in detector and accelerator technologies are disregarde