New physics in triboson event topologies

Abstract

We present a study of the sensitivity to models of new physics of proton collisions resulting in three electroweak bosons. As a benchmark, we analyze models in which an exotic scalar field $\ensuremath{\phi}$ is produced in association with a gauge boson ($V=\ensuremath{\gamma}$ or $Z$). The scalar then decays to a pair of bosons, giving the process $pp\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\phi}V\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{V}^{\ensuremath{'}}{V}^{\ensuremath{'}\ensuremath{'}}V$. We interpret our results in a set of effective field theories where the exotic scalar fields couple to the Standard Model through pairs of electroweak gauge bosons. We estimate the sensitivity of the LHC and HL-LHC datasets and find sensitivity to cross sections in the 10 fb--0.5 fb range, corresponding to scalar masses of 500 GeV to 2 TeV and effective operator coefficients up to 35 TeV.