  We study the prospects of detecting the signal in the stau neutralino
co-annihilation region at the LHC using tau leptons. The co-annihilation signal
is characterized by the stau and neutralino mass difference (dM) to be 5-15 GeV
to be consistent with the WMAP measurement of the cold dark matter relic
density as well as all other experimental bounds within the minimal
supergravity model. Focusing on tau's from neutralino_2 --> tau stau --> tau
tau neutralino_1 decays in gluino and squark production, we consider inclusive
MET+jet+3tau production, with two tau's above a high E_T threshold and a third
tau above a lower threshold. Two observables, the number of opposite-signed tau
pairs minus the number of like-signed tau pairs and the peak position of the
di-tau invariant mass distribution, allow for the simultaneous determination of
dM and M_gluino. For dM = 9 GeV and M_gluino = 850 GeV with 30 fb^-1 of data,
we can measure dM to 15% and M_gluino to 6%.

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology