Next-to-leading order QCD predictions for associated production of top squarks and charginos at the CERN LHC

We present the calculations of the complete next-to-leading order (NLO) inclusive total cross sections for the associated production processes pp --> (t) over tilde (i)(chi) over tilde ((k) over bar)+ X in the minimal supersymmetric standard model at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Our calculations show that the total cross sections for the (t) over tilde (1)(chi) over tilde ((1) over bar) production for the lighter top squark masses in the region 100 GeV < m(<(t)over tilde>1) < 160 GeV can reach 1 pb in the favorable parameter space allowed by the current precise experiments, and in other cases the total cross sections generally vary from 10 fb to several hundred fb except for both m(<(t)over tilde>1) > 500 GeV and the (t) over tilde (2)(chi) over tilde ((2) over bar) production channel. Moreover, we find that the NLO QCD corrections in general enhance the leading order total cross sections significantly, and vastly reduce the dependence of the total cross sections on the renormalization/ factorization scale, which leads to increased confidence in predictions based on these results.