Search for supersymmetry using heavy flavour jets with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider

The Standard Model of particle physics, despite being extremely successful, is not the ultimate description of physics. The nature of dark matter is not well described, unification of the forces is not achieved and the theory
is plagued by a hierarchy problem. One of the proposed solutions to these issues is supersymmetry.

This thesis describes numerous searches for supersymmetry carried out using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. In scenarios where R-parity is conserved, supersymmetric final states contain large amounts of missing transverse energy. Furthermore, should supersymmetry correctly describe Nature, the scalar partners of the third generation quarks might be the lightest scalar quarks. The searches reported here exploit these possibilities and make use of signatures which are rich in missing transverse energy and jets coming from heavy flavour quarks.

Searches are carried out for direct pair production of third generation scalar quarks as well as gluino-mediated production of these particles. A data driven technique to estimate the backgrounds coming from multijet production is described and shown to work in analyses targeting heavy flavour quarks. No significant excesses are observed in a number of analyses. In each case limits are set on the allowed masses of supersymmetric particles in a variety of phenomenological models and in specific supersymmetry breaking scenarios.