Monte Carlo tools for studies of non-standard electroweak gauge boson interactions in multi-boson processes: A Snowmass White Paper

In this Snowmass 2013 white paper, we review the effective field theory approach for studies of non-standard electroweak interactions in electroweak vector boson pair and triple production and vector boson scattering. We present an overview of the implementation of dimension six and eight operators in MadGraph5, VBFNLO, and WHIZARD, and provide relations between the coefficients of these higher dimensions operators used in these programs and in the anomalous couplings approach. We perform a tuned comparison of predictions for multi-boson processes including non-standard electroweak interactions with MadGraph5, VBFNLO, and WHIZARD. We discuss the role of higher-order corrections in these predictions using VBFNLO and a POWHEG BOX implementation of higher-order QCD corrections to WWjj production. The purpose of this white paper is to collect useful tools for the study of non-standard EW physics at the LHC, compare them, and study the main physics issues in the relevant processes.

Unravelling the sbottom spin at the CERN LHC

Establishing that a signal of new physics is undoubtly supersymmetric requires not only the discovery of the supersymmetric partners but also probing their spins and couplings. We show that the sbottom spin can be probed at the CERN Large Hadron Collider using only angular correlations in sbottom pair production with subsequent decay of sbottoms into bottom quark plus the lightest neutralino, which allow us to distinguish a universal extra dimensional interpretation with a fermionic heavy bottom quark from supersymmetry with a bosonic bottom squark. We demonstrate that this channel provides a clear indication of the sbottom spin provided the sbottom production rate and branching ratio into bottom quark plus the lightest neutralino are sufficiently large to have a clear signal above Standard Model backgrounds.