No Arabic abstract
A spectrum of massive graviton states is present in several recent theoretical models that include extra space dimensions. In some such models the graviton states are well separated in mass, and can be detected as resonances in collider experiments. The ability of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider to identify such states and measure their properties is considered, in the case that the resonances are narrow compared to the experimental resolution. The discovery limits for the detection of the decay mode G->e+e- are derived. The angular distribution of the lepton pair is used to determine the spin of the intermediate state. In one specific model, the resonance can be detected up to a graviton resonance mass of 2080 GeV, while the angular distribution favours a spin-2 hypothesis over a spin-1 hypothesis at 90% confidence for resonance masses up to 1720 GeV.
Many new physics models predict resonances with masses in the TeV range which decay into a pair of top quarks. With its large cross section, t-bar t production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) offers an excellent opportunity to search for such particles. We present a detailed study of the discovery potential of the CERN Large Hadron Collider for Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations of the gluon in bulk Randall-Sundrum (RS) models in the t-bar t -> ell^+/- nu b-bar bq-bar q (ell=e, mu) final state. We utilize final states with one or two tagged b-quarks, and two, three or four jets (including b-jets). Our calculations take into account the finite resolution of detectors, the energy loss due to b-quark decays, the expected reduced b-tagging efficiency at large t-bar t invariant masses, and include the background originating from Wb-bar b+jets, (Wb+W-bar b)+jets, W+jets, and single top + jets production. We derive semi-realistic 5 sigma discovery limits for nine different KK gluon scenarios, and compare them with those for KK gravitons, and a Z_H boson in the Littlest Higgs model. We also analyze the capabilities of the LHC experiments to differentiate between individual KK gluon models and measure the couplings of KK gluons to quarks. We find that, for the parameters and models chosen, KK gluons with masses up to about 4 TeV can be discovered at the LHC. The ability of the LHC to discriminate between different bulk RS models, and to measure the couplings of the KK gluons is found to be highly model dependent.
We examine the phenomenology of the production, at the 13 TeV Large Hadron Collider (LHC), of a heavy resonance $X$, which decays via other new on-shell particles $n$ into multi- (i.e. three or more) photon final states. In the limit that $n$ has a much smaller mass than $X$, the multi-photon final state may dominantly appear as a two photon final state because the $gamma$s from the $n$ decay are highly collinear and remain unresolved. We discuss how to discriminate this scenario from $X rightarrow gamma gamma$: rather than discarding non-isolated photons, it is better instead to relax the isolation criterion and instead form photon jet substructure variables. The spins of $X$ and $n$ leave their imprint upon the distribution of pseudorapidity gap $Delta eta$ between the apparent two photon states. Depending on the total integrated luminosity, this can be used in many cases to claim discrimination between the possible spin choices of $X$ and $n$, although the case where $X$ and $n$ are both scalar particles cannot be discriminated from the direct $X rightarrow gamma gamma$ decay in this manner. Information on the mass of $n$ can be gained by considering the mass of each photon jet.
We study the interference between the amplitudes for $gg rightarrow X rightarrow gg$, where $X$ is a new heavy digluon resonance, and the QCD background $gg rightarrow gg$, at the Large Hadron Collider. The interference produces a large low-mass tail and a deficit of events above the resonance mass, compared to the naive pure resonance peak. For a variety of different resonance quantum numbers and masses, we evaluate the signal-background interference contribution at leading order, including showering, hadronization, and detector effects. The resulting new physics dijet mass distribution may have a shape that appears, after QCD background fitting and subtraction, to resemble an enhanced peak, a shelf, a peak/dip, or even a pure dip. We argue that the true limits on new digluon resonances are likely to differ significantly from the limits obtained when interference is neglected, especially if the branching ratio to $gg$ is less than 1.
We investigate the prospects for the discovery of massive color-octet vector bosons at the CERN Large Hadron Collider with $sqrt{s} = 14$ TeV. A phenomenological Lagrangian is adopted to evaluate the cross section of a pair of colored vector bosons (colorons, $tilde{rho}$) decaying into four colored scalar resonances (hyper-pions, $tilde{pi}$), which then decay into eight gluons. We include the dominant physics background from the production of $8g,7g1q, 6g2q$, and $5g3q$, and determine the masses of $tilde{pi}$ and $tilde{rho}$ where discovery is possible. For example, we find that a 5$sigma$ signal can be established for $M_{tilde{pi}} alt 495$ GeV ($M_{tilde{rho}} alt 1650$ GeV). More generally we give the reach of this process for a selection of possible cuts and integrated luminosities.
We investigate new physics scenarios where systems comprised of a single top quark accompanied by missing transverse energy, dubbed monotops, can be produced at the LHC. Following a simplified model approach, we describe all possible monotop production modes via an effective theory and estimate the sensitivity of the LHC, assuming 20 fb$^{-1}$ of collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, to the observation of a monotop state. Considering both leptonic and hadronic top quark decays, we show that large fractions of the parameter space are reachable and that new physics particles with masses ranging up to 1.5 TeV can leave hints within the 2012 LHC dataset, assuming moderate new physics coupling strengths.