Electroweak Bosons Research Articles

NLO EW and QCD corrections to polarised same-sign WW scattering at the LHC

We present the first calculation of same-sign WW scattering at the LHC in the fully leptonic decay channel including the modelling of polarisation for intermediate electroweak bosons and radiative corrections up to NLO EW+QCD accuracy. The predictions rely on a pole expansion and on the split of polarisation states at matrix-element level. Doubly-polarised and unpolarised signals are investigated together with full off-shell results. A detailed phenomenlogical analysis is carried out focusing on differential observables that discriminate between polarisation states, paving the way for refined polarisation-oriented analyses of vector-boson scattering with Run-3 LHC data.

Neutrino dipole portal at a high energy μ−collider

We study the phenomenology of d = 6 dipole portal operators connecting active and sterile neutrinos at a futuristic muon collider. These operators can be the dominant portal between the Standard Model and the New Physics sector in scenarios in which the active-sterile mixing is suppressed. We identify two production modes for sterile neutrinos: one proceeding through the exchange of an s-channel electroweak boson and one arising from the fusion of an electroweak boson with a Standard Model lepton. We study the expected reach on the operators suppression scale for these different production mechanisms, showing that the latter offers the best sensitivity and allowing to test a New Physics scale in the ∼ 10 TeV range for strongly coupled UV completions of the dipole operators.

Searching for heavy neutral leptons at a future muon collider

As the planning stages for a high energy muon collider enter a more concrete era, an important question arises as to what new physics could be uncovered. A TeV-scale muon collider is also a vector boson fusion (VBF) factory with a very clean background, and as such it is a promising environment to look for new physics that couples to the electroweak (EW) sector. In this paper, we explore the ability of a future TeV-scale muon collider to search for Majorana and Dirac heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) produced via EW bosons. Employing a model-independent, conservative approach, we present an estimation of the production and decay rate of HNLs over a mass range between 200 GeV and 9.5 TeV in two benchmark collider proposals with s=3, 10 TeV, as well as an estimation of the dominant Standard Model (SM) background. We find that exclusion limits for the mixing between the HNLs and SM neutrinos can be as low as O(10−6). Additionally, we demonstrate that a TeV-scale muon collider allows for the ability to discriminate between Majorana and Dirac type HNLs for a large range of mixing values. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Combined explanation of LHC multilepton, diphoton, and top-quark excesses

In this article, we propose the Δ2HDMS as a combined explanation of several excesses and anomalies observed at the LHC. Especially, tt¯ differential distributions point towards the associated production of new electroweak scale Higgs bosons decaying into bottom quarks and W bosons (>5σ) with masses consistent with the diphoton excesses at ≈95 GeV and ≈151.5 GeV (3.8σ and 4.9σ, respectively). Furthermore, CMS found indications for resonant tt¯ production at ≈400 GeV (3.5σ) and both ATLAS and CMS reported elevated four-top and tt¯W cross sections. The Δ2HDMS is obtained by supplementing the SM Higgs (H2) with a second scalar doublet (H1), real scalar singlet (S), and a Higgs triplet with zero hypercharge (Δ). We fix the masses of the neutral tripletlike and the singletlike scalars by the diphoton excesses, i.e., mΔ0=151.5 GeV and mS=95 GeV, respectively. H, the CP-even component of H1, is produced via gluon fusion from a top-loop and decays dominantly to S+Δ0 whose subsequent decays to W+W− and bb¯ explain the differential tt¯ distributions for σ(pp→H→SΔ0)≈5 pb. Choosing the top-Yukawa of H1 accordingly, the CP-odd Higgs boson A turns out to have the right production cross section to account for the resonant tt¯ excess at 400 GeV, while the top-associated production of H and A results in new physics pollution of Standard Model tt¯W and tt¯tt¯ cross sections, as preferred by the data. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

The phase space distance between collider events

How can one fully harness the power of physics encoded in relativistic N-body phase space? Topologically, phase space is isomorphic to the product space of a simplex and a hypersphere and can be equipped with explicit coordinates and a Riemannian metric. This natural structure that scaffolds the space on which all collider physics events live opens up new directions for machine learning applications and implementation. Here we present a detailed construction of the phase space manifold and its differential line element, identifying particle ordering prescriptions that ensure that the metric satisfies necessary properties. We apply the phase space metric to several binary classification tasks, including discrimination of high-multiplicity resonance decays or boosted hadronic decays of electroweak bosons from QCD processes, and demonstrate powerful performance on simulated data. Our work demonstrates the many benefits of promoting phase space from merely a background on which calculations take place to being geometrically entwined with a theory’s dynamics.

The strong coupling constant: state of the art and the decade ahead

Abstract Theoretical predictions for particle production cross sections and decays at colliders rely heavily on perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) calculations, expressed as an expansion in powers of the strong coupling constant α S . The current O ( 1 % ) uncertainty of the QCD coupling evaluated at the reference Z boson mass, α S ( m Z 2 ) = 0.1179 ± 0.0009 , is one of the limiting factors to more precisely describe multiple processes at current and future colliders. A reduction of this uncertainty is thus a prerequisite to perform precision tests of the Standard Model as well as searches for new physics. This report provides a comprehensive summary of the state-of-the-art, challenges, and prospects in the experimental and theoretical study of the strong coupling. The current α S ( m Z 2 ) world average is derived from a combination of seven categories of observables: (i) lattice QCD, (ii) hadronic τ decays, (iii) deep-inelastic scattering and parton distribution functions fits, (iv) electroweak boson decays, hadronic final-states in (v) e+e−, (vi) e–p, and (vii) p–p collisions, and (viii) quarkonia decays and masses. We review the current status of each of these seven α S ( m Z 2 ) extraction methods, discuss novel α S determinations, and examine the averaging method used to obtain the world-average value. Each of the methods discussed provides a ‘wish list’ of experimental and theoretical developments required in order to achieve the goal of a per-mille precision on α S ( m Z 2 ) within the next decade.

Constraints on anomalous Higgs boson couplings from its production and decay using the WW channel in proton–proton collisions at s=13TeV\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\sqrt{s} = 13~\ ext {TeV}$$\\end{document}

A study of the anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson to vector bosons, including CP\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\ extit{CP}}$$\\end{document}-violation effects, has been conducted using its production and decay in the WW channel. This analysis is performed on proton–proton collision data collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC during 2016–2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138fb-1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\,\ ext {fb}^{-1}$$\\end{document}. The different-flavor dilepton (eμ)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$({\ extrm{e}} {{\\upmu }})$$\\end{document} final state is analyzed, with dedicated categories targeting gluon fusion, electroweak vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or Z boson. Kinematic information from associated jets is combined using matrix element techniques to increase the sensitivity to anomalous effects at the production vertex. A simultaneous measurement of four Higgs boson couplings to electroweak vector bosons is performed in the framework of a standard model effective field theory. All measurements are consistent with the expectations for the standard model Higgs boson and constraints are set on the fractional contribution of the anomalous couplings to the Higgs boson production cross section.

Probing the interactions of axion-like particles with electroweak bosons and the Higgs boson in the high energy regime at LHC

We study the interactions of axion-like particles (ALPs) with the Standard Model particles, aiming to probe their phenomenology via non-resonant searches at the LHC. These interactions are mediated by higher dimensional effective operators within two possible frameworks of linearly and non-linearly realised electroweak symmetry breaking. We consider the ALPs to be light enough to be produced on-shell and exploit their derivative couplings with the SM Higgs boson and the gauge bosons. We will use the high momentum transfer processes, namely hZ, Zγ, WW and WWγ production from pp collisions. We derive upper limits on the gauge-invariant interactions of ALPs with the electroweak bosons and/or Higgs boson that contribute to these processes, from the re-interpretation of the latest Run 2 available LHC data. The constraints we obtain are strong for ALP masses below 100 GeV. These allowed effective interactions in the ALP parameter space yield better significance at HL-LHC and thus, offer promising avenues for subsequent studies. Furthermore, we augment our cut-based analysis with gradient-boosted decision trees, which improve the statistical significance distinctly across these interaction channels. We briefly compare the results with the complementary probe of these couplings via direct production of ALPs in association with the Higgs boson or a vector boson.

Nuclear Parton Distribution Functions After the First Decade of LHC Data

We present a review of the conceptual basis, current knowledge, and recent progress regarding global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions (PDFs). After introducing the theoretical foundations and methodological approaches for the extraction of nuclear PDFs from experimental data, we discuss how different measurements in fixed-target and collider experiments provide increasingly precise constraints on various aspects of nuclear PDFs, including shadowing, antishadowing, the EMC effect, Fermi motion, flavor separation, deuteron binding, and target-mass and other higher-twist effects. Particular emphasis is given to measurements carried out in proton–lead collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, which have revolutionized the global analysis during the past decade. These measurements include electroweak boson, jet, light hadron, and heavy flavor observables. Finally, we outline the expected impact of the future Electron Ion Collider and discuss the role and interplay of nuclear PDFs with other branches of nuclear, particle, and astroparticle physics.

Neutrinos for TeV neutralinos

One of the most well-founded candidates for dark matter remains a split-supersymmetry (SUSY) model with a Higgsino- or winolike lightest superpartner and the grander SUSY model providing answers for the hierarchy problem and grand unified theory scale unification. The relatively heavy scalar superpartners imply such models would not yet be seen at collider experiments, and mixing-suppressed couplings place such models outside the reach of current direct detection experiments. As such particles annihilate fairly readily to electroweak bosons, a significant neutrino signal can arise near the Galactic Center that may be visible to dedicated searches at current and future neutrino telescopes. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Drell-Yan bounds on gapped continuum spectra

Theories with gapped continuum spectra have gotten some attention, either as pure 4D models like unparticles, or in 5D realizations as certain soft walls constructions. In this paper, we derive experimental bounds from Drell-Yan processes (pp → ℓ+ℓ−, pp → ℓ±ν) in a particular scenario where the electroweak bosons propagate in an extra dimension that produces a propagator with a continuum spectrum, on top of the isolated corresponding Standard Model pole. Using current LHC data we put a lower bound on the gap of 4.2 TeV (expected), 6.2 TeV (observed, bins with < 10 events combined) at 95% CL, with some dependence in the observed limit on how low statistics bins are treated. We also study the limits for HL-LHC.

Discovering long-lived particles at DUNE

Long-lived particles (LLPs) arise in many theories beyond the Standard Model. These may be copiously produced from meson decays (or through their mixing with the LLPs) at neutrino facilities and leave a visible decay signal in nearby neutrino detectors. We compute the expected sensitivity of the DUNE liquid argon (LAr) and gaseous argon near detectors (NDs) to light LLP decays. In doing so, we determine the expected backgrounds for both detectors, which have been largely overlooked in the literature, taking into account their angular and energy resolution. We show that searches for LLP decays into muon pairs, or into three pions, would be extremely clean. Conversely, decays into two photons would be affected by large backgrounds from neutrino interactions for both near detectors; finally, the reduced signal efficiency for e+e− pairs leads to a reduced sensitivity for ND-LAr. Our results are first presented in a model-independent way, as a function of the mass of the new state and its lifetime. We also provide detailed calculations for several phenomenological models with axionlike particles (coupled to gluons, electroweak bosons, or quark currents). Some of our results may also be of interest for other neutrino facilities using a similar detector technology (e.g., MicroBooNE, SBND, ICARUS, or the T2K near detector). Published by the American Physical Society 2024

A beyond-the-Standard-Model model without Higgs

In this talk we describe the construction of a putative beyond-the-Standard-Model model where, as a viable alternative to the Higgs scenario, elementary particle masses emerge in a non-perturbative way as a consequence of a sort of “interference” between residual UV chiral breaking effects left behind in the Nambu–Goldstone phase of the theory at a critical value of the Yukawa coupling where chiral symmetry is recovered, and IR features triggered by the phenomenon of spontaneous breaking of (the recovered) chiral symmetry which standardly takes place in a strongly interacting theory. Elementary particle masses are all proportional to the RGI scale of the theory. Thus to get the top quark and the electro-weak boson masses at the desired value one must have ΛRGI≫ΛQCD. This in turn implies that there must exist a new superstrongly interacting sector of fermions (we call them Tera-fermions) gauge invariantly coupled to Standard Model matter with ΛRGI≡ΛT of the order of a few TeVs. We give the expression of the full Lagrangian of a model encompassing quarks, Tera-quarks and W, as well as leptons, Tera-leptons and B gauge bosons when besides strong, Tera-strong and weak interactions, also hypercharge is included. The interest of considering elementary particle physics models with this kind of non-perturbative mass generation mechanism is twofold. First of all, unlike the Standard Model in this scenario elementary particle masses are not free parameters but are determined by the dynamics of the theory. Secondly, some of the conceptual problems of today's formulation of the Standard Model, namely origin of the electroweak scale and naturalness, find a possible solution.

Two-loop helicity amplitudes for V+jet production including axial vector couplings to higher orders in ϵ

We compute the two-loop Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) corrections to all partonic channels relevant for the production of an electroweak boson V = Z, W±, γ* and a jet at hadron colliders. We consider the decay of a vector boson V to three partons V → qq¯g\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ q\\overline{q}g $$\\end{document}, V → ggg with a vector and axial vector coupling in both channels, including singlet and non-singlet contributions. For the quark channel, we use a recent tensor decomposition and extend the calculation to O\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O} $$\\end{document}(ϵ2). For the gluonic channel, we define a new tensor decomposition which allows us to compute the vector and the axial vector amplitudes at once and to perform the computation of the amplitudes to O\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O} $$\\end{document}(ϵ2). We provide finite remainders of the helicity amplitudes analytically continued to all relevant scattering regions qq¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ q\\overline{q} $$\\end{document} → Vg, qg → Vq and gg → Vg. The axial vector contribution to the gluon-induced channel completes the set of two-loop amplitudes for this process, while the extension to O\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O} $$\\end{document}(ϵ2) represents the first step in the calculation of next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-order (N3LO) QCD corrections to Z+jet production at hadron colliders.

NLO QCD corrections to polarized diboson production in semileptonic final states

Understanding the polarization structure and providing precise predictions for multiboson processes at the LHC is becoming urgent in the light of the upcoming run-3 and high-luminosity data. The CMS and ATLAS collaborations have already started using polarized predictions to perform template fits of the data, getting access to the polarization of W and Z bosons. So far, only fully leptonic decay channels have been considered in this perspective. The natural step forward is the investigation of hadronic decays of electroweak bosons. In this work, we compute NLO QCD corrections to the production and decay of WZ pairs at the LHC in final states with two charged leptons and jets. The calculation relies on the double-pole approximation and the separation of polarized states at the level of Standard Model amplitudes. The presented NLO-accurate results are necessary building blocks for a broad understanding and precise modeling of polarized diboson production in semileptonic decay channels.

Power corrections to electroweak boson production from threshold resummation

We study the power corrections for electroweak boson production that are implied by threshold resummation, which we have extended to massive particles produced at measured transverse momentum, $p_T$, and rapidity. Power corrections in the resulting expressions arise from ambiguities in the low-scale behavior of the perturbative running coupling. Arguing for the relevance of the eikonal approximation, we show that such power corrections begin at order $1/p_T^2$ in full QCD, consistent with fixed-order, massive-gluon analysis. For large-$N$ Mellin moments, the leading behavior is $N^2/p_T^2$, which exponentiates along with the logarithms of threshold resummation.

Electroweak-boson production from small to large systems with ALICE at the LHC

Results on the recent measurements of the electroweak-boson production performed by the ALICE Collaboration are reported. The W±-boson production was measured at midrapidity in pp collisions at √S = 13 TeV, via the electronic decay of the boson. It was also measured in association with a hadron emitted back-to-back with respect to the electron. In heavy-ion collisions, the W±- and Z0-boson production was measured at forward rapidity in p–Pb collisions at √SNN = 8.16 TeV and Pb–Pb collisions at √SNN = 5.02 TeV, in their muonic decay channel. Measurements in pp collisions shed light on multiple parton interactions and colour reconnection mechanisms. In heavy-ion collisions the measurements of electroweak bosons allow to probe the initial state of the collision.

Energy correlators of hadronically decaying electroweak bosons

Energy correlators are field-theoretically clean and phenomenologically valuable probes of QCD dynamics. We explore the possibility of using the information encoded in the energy correlators of a hadronically decaying electroweak vector boson in order to extract its full decay density matrix. The kinematics of the one- and two-point energy correlators can indeed discriminate between longitudinal and transverse modes and reveal the interference pattern between different vector polarizations. Such observables improve the sensitivity to microscopic new physics affecting the production rate of the different helicities. We assess the impact on higher-dimensional effective field theory operators in simple scenarios.

Improved Constraints on the Heavy Gauge Bosons Decaying to Pairs of Electroweak Bosons by Using the Expected Run 3 Data and HL-LHC Options

The expected ATLAS Run 3 data set with time-integrated luminosity of 300 fb−1 and HL–LHC options at the LHC in the diboson channels are used to probe a simple benchmark model with an extended gauge sector, proposed by Altarelli et al. This model accommodates new charged W' and neutral Z' vector bosons with modified trilinear Standard Model gauge couplings, decaying into electroweak gauge boson pairs W Z or W W, where W / Z decay semileptonically. Also presented, from a similar analysis of W' and Z' bosons arising in the EGM, which can decay through W' → lν and Z' → ll , are limits on the W–W' and Z–Z' mixing parameters and the W' and Z' vector boson masses. We present upper limits on the mixing parameters, Z–Z' and W–W', by using the expected Run 3 data and HL–LHC options.

Search for type-III seesaw heavy leptons in leptonic final states in pp collisions at sqrt{s} = 13~text {TeV} with the ATLAS detector

A search for the pair production of heavy leptons as predicted by the type-III seesaw mechanism is presented. The search uses proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to 139,text {fb}^{-1} of integrated luminosity recorded by the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis focuses on final states with three or four electrons or muons from the possible decays of new heavy leptons via intermediate electroweak bosons. No significant deviations above the Standard Model expectation are observed; upper and lower limits on the heavy lepton production cross-section and masses are derived respectively. These results are then combined for the first time with the ones already published by ATLAS using the channel with two leptons in the final state. The observed lower limit on the mass of the type-III seesaw heavy leptons combining two, three and four lepton channels together is 910 GeV at the 95% confidence level.