Rare decays as diagnostics for Z' gauge couplings at hadron colliders.

Abstract

We propose rare decays of ${Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{f}_{1}{\overline{f}}_{2}V$ (with $V=W or Z$, and ${f}_{1,2}$ ordinary fermions) as diagnostic tests for gauge couplings of possible ${Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ gauge bosons at future hadron colliders. Because of the collinear singularity such decay rates have a logarithmic enhancement proportional to ${\mathrm{In}}^{2}(\frac{{M}_{{Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}}^{2}}{{M}_{V}^{2}})$. For ${M}_{{Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}}\ensuremath{\sim}1$ TeV and a large class of models, there would be a sufficiently large (> ${10}^{2}$) number of leptonic and semileptonic events at projected luminosities at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and Superconducting Super Collider. A discussion of backgrounds and a comparison with the forward-backward asymmetry are given.