Abstract
We investigate the phenomenology of a heavy scalar ϕ of the type involved in Bekenstein's framework for varying electromagnetic coupling theories, with the difference that the scalar in our model has a large mass. The model has only two free parameters, the mass Mϕ of the scalar and the scale Λ of new physics. The scalar is dominantly produced through photon–photon fusion at the LHC and leads to a diphoton final state. It can also be produced by quark–antiquark fusion in association with a photon or a fermion pair. Its dominating decay is to diphotons, but it also has a large three-body branching to a fermion pair and a photon, which can provide an interesting search channel with a dilepton–photon resonance. We derive exclusion limits on the Mϕ−Λ plane from the latest 13 TeV LHC diphoton resonance search data. For a benchmark mass of Mϕ∼1 TeV, we find a lower limit on Λ of 18 TeV. We discuss the more complex possibility of varying couplings in the full electroweak theory and comment on the possibility that the new physics is related to extra dimensions or string theory.
Highlights
In this paper we perform the first ever study of the collider physics of a model for spacetime-varying gauge couplings
Danielsson et al / Nuclear Physics B 919 (2017) 569–582 by Jacob Bekenstein [1,2] and introduces a new scalar field associated with a variation in the electromagnetic (EM) coupling constant
We propose that the Bekenstein model can be relevant for particle physics experiments, and that the scalar can have a mass on the TeV scale and be accessible at the LHC
Summary
In this paper we perform the first ever study of the collider physics of a model for spacetime-varying gauge couplings. Danielsson et al / Nuclear Physics B 919 (2017) 569–582 by Jacob Bekenstein [1,2] and introduces a new scalar field associated with a variation in the electromagnetic (EM) coupling constant (αEM) This model has, to the best of our knowledge, previously only been studied in the context of cosmology with a massless, or very light, scalar, and bounds on the model have been considered based on low-energy physics and astrophysics, see e.g. Considering variations of αEM, this implies the existence of a new scalar field φ which couples to photons, i.e., it is “photophilic” This would provide a discovery potential at the LHC through the decay φ → γ γ , which gives a striking signal of high-energy photons pairs with invariant mass Mγ γ = Mφ that may extend to several TeV.
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