With the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, announced in July
2012, decades of searches for this cornerstone of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics
concluded with a triumph of science. Despite its remarkable success in describing the experimental
data so far, there exist compelling reasons to expect new physics to extend the SM. One of the most
studied extensions is Supersymmetry (SUSY). This theory addresses several of the fundamental open
questions in the field through the prediction of so-far unobserved new particles. The LHC provides a
unique place to search for SUSY at energies never reached before in a laboratory.
The LHC will restart colliding protons in Spring 2015 at nearly doubled energy and with higher rates.
With a Higgs boson already discovered, searching for new physics, in particular SUSY, is now the top
priority of the LHC experiments.
The Flemish institutes participating in the CMS experiment propose a research project comprising of
a suite of coherent and complementary analyses with the goal to discover or rule out so-called
natural SUSY.
In either case, the results will have direct impact on the future direction of the field. In case of no
discovery, SUSY will lose its long-standing appeal as an extension of the SM. In case of discovery, a
new chapter opens for particle physics and our fundamental understanding of space, time, and
matter, with possible far-reaching consequences on other research fields.