A gluino is the hypothetical supersymmetric partner of a gluon

Gluon

Gluons are elementary particles which act as the exchange particles for the color force between quarks, analogous to the exchange of photons in the electromagnetic force between two charged particles....

. Gluinos are expected by supersymmetry theorists to be pair produced

Pair production

Pair production refers to the creation of an elementary particle and its antiparticle, usually from a photon . For example an electron and its antiparticle, the positron, may be created...

 in particle accelerator

Particle accelerator

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator. There are two basic types: electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators.In...

s such as the Large Hadron Collider

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature....

 if they exist.

In supersymmetric theories, gluinos are Majorana fermion

Majorana fermion

In physics, a Majorana fermion is a fermion which is its own anti-particle. The term is used in opposition to Dirac fermion, which describes particles that differ from their antiparticles...

s and interact via the strong force

Strong interaction

In particle physics, the strong interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature, the others being electromagnetism, the weak interaction and gravitation. As with the other fundamental interactions, it is a non-contact force...

 as a color octet. Gluinos have a lepton

Lepton

A lepton is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. The best known of all leptons is the electron which governs nearly all of chemistry as it is found in atoms and is directly tied to all chemical properties. Two main classes of leptons exist: charged leptons , and neutral...

 number 0, baryon

Baryon

A baryon is a composite particle made up of three quarks . Baryons and mesons belong to the hadron family, which are the quark-based particles...

 number 0, and spin

Spin (physics)

In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is a fundamental characteristic property of elementary particles, composite particles , and atomic nuclei.It is worth noting that the intrinsic property of subatomic particles called spin and discussed in this article, is related in some small ways,...

 1/2.

Gluinos decay via strong interaction to a squark and a quark

Quark

A quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never directly...

 provided that an appropriate mass relation is satisfied.
The squark subsequently decays to another quark and the lightest supersymmetric particle, LSP

Lightest Supersymmetric Particle

In particle physics, the Lightest Supersymmetric Particle is the generic name given to the lightest of the additional hypothetical particles found in supersymmetric models. In models with R-parity conservation, the LSP is stable. There is extensive observational evidence for an additional...

 (which leaves the detector unseen). This means that a typical signal for a gluino at a hadron collider would be four jet

Jet (particle physics)

A jet is a narrow cone of hadrons and other particles produced by the hadronization of a quark or gluon in a particle physics or heavy ion experiment. Because of QCD confinement, particles carrying a color charge, such as quarks, cannot exist in free form. Therefore they fragment into hadrons...

s plus missing energy

Missing energy

In experimental particle physics, missing energy refers to energy which is not detected in a particle detector, but is not expected due to the laws of Conservation of Mass and Conservation of Momentum...

.

However if gluinos are lighter than squarks, 3-body decay of a gluino to a neutralino

Neutralino

In particle physics, the neutralino is a hypothetical particle predicted by supersymmetry. There are four neutralinos that are fermions and are electrically neutral, the lightest of which is typically stable...

and a quark antiquark pair is kinematically accessible through an off-shell squark.