GeV Diphoton Research Articles

95.4 GeV diphoton excess at ATLAS and CMS

The ATLAS Collaboration has recently reported the results of a low-mass Higgs-boson search in the diphoton final state based on the full Run 2 dataset. The results are based on an improved analysis with respect to the previous analysis, which included a part of the Run 2 data, with a substantially better sensitivity. The “model-dependent” search carried out by ATLAS shows an excess of events at a mass of about 95.4 GeV with a local significance of 1.7σ. The results are compatible with a previously reported excess at the same mass, but with somewhat higher significance of 2.9σ, from the CMS collaboration, also based on the full Run 2 dataset. Combining the two results (neglecting possible correlations), we find a signal strength of μγγATLAS+CMS=0.24−0.08+0.09, corresponding to an excess of 3.1σ. In this work, we investigate the implications of this result, updating a previous analysis based solely on the CMS Run 2 data. We demonstrate that the ATLAS/CMS combined diphoton excess can be interpreted as the lightest Higgs boson in a Two-Higgs doublet model that is extended by a complex singlet (S2HDM) of Yukawa types II and IV, while being in agreement with all other experimental and theoretical constraints. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Light-by-light scattering in ultraperipheral collisions of heavy ions at two future detectors

We discuss possible future studies of photon-photon (light-by-light) scattering using a planned FoCal and ALICE 3 detectors. We include different mechanisms of γγ→γγ scattering such as double-hadronic photon fluctuations, t/u-channel neutral pion exchange or resonance excitations (γγ→R) and deexcitation (R→γγ). The broad range of (pseudo)rapidities and lower cuts on transverse momenta open a necessity to consider not only dominant box contributions but also other subleading contributions. Here we include low mass resonant R=π0, η, η′ contributions. The resonance contributions give intermediate photon transverse momenta. However, these contributions can be eliminated by imposing windows on diphoton invariant mass. We study and quantify individual box contributions (leptonic, quarkish). The electron/positron boxes dominate at low Mγγ<1 GeV diphoton invariant masses. The PbPb→PbPbγγ cross section is calculated within equivalent photon approximation in the impact parameter space. Several differential distributions are presented and discussed. We consider four different kinematic regions. We predict a cross section in the (mb-b) range for typical ALICE 3 cuts, a few orders of magnitude larger than for the current ATLAS or CMS experiments. We also consider the two-π0 background which can, in principle, be eliminated at the new kinematical range for the ALICE 3 measurements by imposing dedicated cuts on diphoton transverse momentum and/or so-called vector asymmetry. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Fermion mass hierarchy in an extended left-right symmetric model

We present a Left-Right symmetric model that provides an explanation for the mass hierarchy of the charged fermions within the framework of the Standard Model. This explanation is achieved through the utilization of both tree-level and radiative seesaw mechanisms. In this model, the tiny masses of the light active neutrinos are generated via a three-loop radiative inverse seesaw mechanism, with Dirac and Majorana submatrices arising at one-loop level. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of the inverse seesaw mechanism being implemented with both submatrices generated at one- loop level. The model contains a global U(1)X symmetry which, after its spontaneous breaking, allows for the stabilization of the Dark Matter (DM) candidates. We show that the electroweak precision observables, the electron and muon anomalous magnetic moments as well as the Charged Lepton Flavor Violating decays, μ → eγ, are consistent with the current experimental limits. In addition, we analyze the implications of the model for the 95 GeV diphoton excess recently reported by the CMS collaboration and demonstrate that such anomaly could be easily accommodated. Finally, we discuss qualitative aspects of DM in the considered model.

96 GeV diphoton excess in seesaw extensions of the natural NMSSM

The Next-to Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) with a Type-I seesaw mechanism extends the NMSSM by three generations of right-handed neutrino fields to generate neutrino mass. As a byproduct it renders the lightest sneutrino as a viable DM candidate. Due to the gauge singlet nature of the DM, its scattering with nucleon is suppressed in most cases to coincide spontaneously with the latest XENON-1T results. Consequently, broad parameter spaces in the Higgs sector, especially a light Higgsino mass, are resurrected as experimentally allowed, which makes the theory well suited to explain the long standing $b \bar{b}$ excess at LEP-II and the continuously observed $\gamma \gamma$ excess by CMS collaboration. We show by both analytic formulas and numerical results that the theory can naturally predict the central values of the excesses in its broad parameter space, and the explanations are consistent with the Higgs data of the discovered Higgs boson, $B-$physics and DM physics measurements, the electroweak precision data as well as the LHC search for sparticles. Part of the explanations may be tested by future DM experiments and the SUSY search at the LHC.

Heavy scalar boson in view of the unconfirmed 750 GeV LHC diphoton excess

We discuss the impact of the constraints from the measurements of the parameters of the observed 125 GeV Higgs boson and from the unconfirmed 750 GeV diphoton excess in the LHC experiments on the properties of a possible extra scalar boson predicted in various Standard Model extensions. We consider an SM extension based on a stabilized brane-world model, in which the effective low-energy Lagrangian for the scalar degrees of freedom turns out to be very general and, for different values of the model parameters, reproduces the scalar field Lagrangians of various SM extensions by a singlet scalar. It is shown that in the simplest variant of the model, where only the gravitational degrees of freedom propagate in the bulk, the 125 GeV scalar state can be consistently interpreted as a Higgs-dominated state for a rather wide range of the model parameters, whereas the production cross section of a heavier radion-dominated state with mass 750 GeV or more turns out to be too small in the allowed region of the model parameter space for producing the wouldbe diphoton excess.

Cracking down on fake photons: Cases of diphoton resonance imposters

Among various models to explain the $750$ GeV diphoton resonance hinted at the LHC Run 2, a class of models where the resonance decays not into a pair of photons but into a pair of photon-jets is gathering definite attention. In this paper, we study how well we can distinguish the di-photon-jet resonance from the diphoton resonance by examining detector responses to the photon-jets. We find that the sum of $p_T$ of the first $e^+e^-$ pair from the photon conversion provides strong discrimination power. We also discuss determination of the lifetime of the light intermediate particle by measuring the photon conversion points.

Interpreting 750 GeV diphoton excess with R-parity violating supersymmetry

We propose a supersymmetric explanation of the diphoton excess in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with the leptonic R-parity violation. In our model, sneutrino serves as the 750 GeV resonance and produced through quark–antiquark annihilation. With introducing appropriate trilinear soft parameters, we show that the diphoton branching ratio is significantly enhanced compared with the conventional MSSM. For current dijet and W-pair LHC constraints, we can successfully fit the observed diphoton signal rate in sizeable parameter regions, the resulting parameter space strongly favor the masses of light smuon and stau within the range from 375–500 GeV, which depends on the choice of electroweakino masses and soft trilinear terms. While after taking into account the compatibility of diphoton excess between the 8 TeV and 13 TeV LHC, only the coupling involved with the second generation quarks is survived. In this case, the corresponding parameter space favors a narrow mass range of smuon and stau with [Formula: see text]. Even if the 750 GeV diphoton excesses were not confirmed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments, we point out that our proposal can still be used to explain the current and future tentative diphoton excesses.

Sum-rule constraints on possible diphoton resonances at LHC

The study of the forward scattering amplitude $V(k,\lambda) V(k'\lambda')\to V(k,\lambda) V(k',\lambda')$ of real massless gauge bosons $V$, e.g. photons or gluons, leads to a sum-rule that can be used to investigate beyond the Standard Model signals at LHC in the $\gamma\gamma$ channel. The sum-rule only relies on general properties such as analyticity, unitarity and crossing. We use the now buried 750 GeV diphoton resonance as a case of study to exemplify the constraints that the forward sum-rule requires to any new physics candidate. In the case of a large $\gamma\gamma$ or $gg$ partial width, of the order of 10 GeV in our 750 GeV analysis, one finds that an infinite tower of states with spin $J_R=2$ and higher must be ultimately incorporated to the beyond Standard Model theory in order to fulfill the sum-rule. We expect these techniques may be useful in next diphoton searches at LHC and future colliders.

LHC 750 GeV diphoton excess in a radiative seesaw model

We investigate a possibility for explaining the recently announced 750\,GeV diphoton excess by the ATLAS and the CMS experiments at the CERN LHC in a model with multiple doubly charged particles, which was originally suggested for explaining tiny neutrino masses through a three-loop effect in a natural way. The enhanced radiatively generated effective coupling of a new singlet scalar $S$ with diphoton with multiple charged particles in the loop enlarges the production rate of $S$ in $pp\to S+X$ via photon fusion process and also the decay width $\Gamma(S\to \gamma\gamma)$ even without assuming a tree level production mechanism. We provide detailed analysis on the cases with or without allowing the mixing between $S$ and the standard model Higgs doublet.

The return of the King: No-Scale F-SU(5)

We revisit the viable parameter space in No-Scale ${\cal F}$-$SU(5)$, examining the Grand Unified Theory within the context of the prevailing gluino mass limits established by the LHC. The satisfaction of both the No-Scale boundary condition and the experimentally measured Standard Model (SM) like Higgs boson mass requires a lower limit on the gluino mass in the model space of about 1.9 TeV, which maybe not coincidentally is the current LHC supersymmetry search bound. This offers a plausible explanation as to why a supersymmetry signal has thus far not been observed at the LHC. On the contrary, since the vector-like flippon particles are relatively heavy due to the strict condition that the supersymmetry breaking soft term $B_{\mu}$ must vanish at the unification scale, we also cannot address the recently vanished 750 GeV diphoton resonance at the 13 TeV LHC. Therefore, No-Scale ${\cal F}$-$SU(5)$ returns as a King after the spurious 750 GeV diphoton excess was gone with the wind.

Doubly charged vector leptons and the Higgs portal

Using a bottom up phenomenological approach we constructed a simple doubly charged vector lepton ${E}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$ model for the possible 750 GeV diphoton resonance $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}$ at the LHC assuming it to be a scalar particle. Since no stable doubly charged leptons are seen, to facilitate their decays we complete the model by adding a charged standard model (SM) electroweak scalar ${S}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$. $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}$ is a SM singlet and can be either an inert scalar or a Higgs field. In the inert case more than one vector lepton is required to account for the photon fusion production of the resonance if the model is to remain perturbative. For a Higgs boson case ${S}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$ can assist the production mechanism without using more than one such lepton. We also found that precision measurements constrain the couplings of ${E}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$ and ${S}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$ to SM particles to be small. This raises the possibility that they can be fairly long lived and can give rise to displaced vertices if produced at the LHC.

Diphoton resonance from a new strong force

We explore a "partial unification" model that could explain the diphoton event excess around $750 \, \rm GeV$ recently reported by the LHC experiments. A new strong gauge group is combined with the ordinary color and hypercharge gauge groups. The VEV responsible for the combination is of the order of the $SU(2)\times U(1)$ breaking scale, but the coupling of the new physics to standard model particles is suppressed by the strong interaction of the new gauge group. This simple extension of the standard model has a rich phenomenology, including composite particles of the new confining gauge interaction, a coloron and a $Z'$ which are rather weakly coupled to standard model particles, and massive vector bosons charged under both the ordinary color and hypercharge gauge groups and the new strong gauge group. The new scalar glueball could have mass of around $750 \, \rm GeV$, be produced by gluon fusion and decay into two photons, both through loops of the new massive vector bosons. The simplest version of the model has some issues: the massive vector bosons are stable and the coloron and the $Z'$ are strongly constrained by search data. An extension of the model to include additional fermions with the new gauge coupling, though not as simple and elegant, can address both issues and more. It allows the massive vector boson to decay into a colorless, neutral state that could be a candidate of the dark matter. And the coloron and $Z'$ can decay dominantly into the new fermions, completely changing the search bounds. In addition, $SU(N)$ fermions below the symmetry breaking scale make it more plausible that the lightest glueball is at $750$~GeV. Whatever becomes of the $750$~GeV diphoton excess, the model is an unusual example of how new physics at small scales could be hidden by strong interactions.

Has a Flavon with M = 750 GeV been detected at the LHC13 ?

Higgs-flavon fields appear as a part of the Froggatt-Nielsen (FN) mechanism, which attempts to explain the hierarchy of Yukawa couplings. We explore the possibility that the 750 GeV diphoton resonance recently reported at the LHC13, could be identified with a low-scale Higgs-flavon field HF and find the region of the parameter space consistent with CMS and ATLAS data. It is found that the extra vector-like fermions of the ultraviolet completion of the FN mechanism are necessary in order to reproduce the observed signal. We consider a standard model (SM) extension that contains two Higgs doublets (a standard one and an inert one) and one complex FN singlet. The inert doublet includes a stable neutral boson, which provides a viable dark matter candidate, while the mixing of the standard doublet and the FN singlet induces flavor violation in the Higgs sector at the tree-level. Constraints on the parameters of the model are derived from the LHC Higgs data, which include the search for the lepton flavor violating decay of the SM Higgs boson h→μ̵τ.

Signal background interference effects in heavy scalar production and decay to a top-anti-top pair

We analyse the production of a top quark pair through a heavy scalar at the LHC. We first review the main features of the signal as well as the interference with the top-anti-top background at leading order in QCD. We then study higher order QCD effects. While the background and the signal can be obtained at NNLO and NLO in QCD respectively, that is not the case for their interference, which is currently known only at LO. In order to improve the accuracy of the prediction for the interference term, we consider the effects of extra QCD radiation, i.e. the $2 \to 3$ (loop-induced) processes and obtain an estimate of the NLO corrections. As a result, we find that the contribution of the interference is important both at the total cross-section level and, most importantly, for the line-shape of the heavy scalar. In particular for resonances with widths larger than a couple of percent of the resonance mass, the interference term distorts the invariant mass distribution and generically leads to a non-trivial peak-dip structure. We study this process in a simplified model involving an additional scalar or pseudoscalar resonance as well as in the Two-Higgs-Doublet-Model for a set of representative benchmarks. We present the constraints on simplified models featuring an extra scalar as set by the LHC searches for top-anti-top resonances, and the implications of the 750 GeV diphoton excess recently reported by CMS and ATLAS for the top pair production assuming a scalar or a pseudoscalar resonance.

Systematic study of diphoton resonance at 750 GeV from sgoldstino

The ATLAS and CMS Collaborations of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have reported an excess of events in diphoton channel with invariant mass of about 750 GeV. With low energy supersymmetry breaking, we systematically consider the sgoldstino scalar S as the new resonance, which is a linear combination of the CP-even scalar [Formula: see text] and CP-odd pseudoscalar [Formula: see text]. Because we show that [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] can be degenerated or have large mass splitting, we consider two cases for all the following three scenarios: (1) Single resonance, [Formula: see text] is the 750 GeV resonance decays to a pair of 1 GeV pseudoscalar [Formula: see text] with suitable decay length, these two [Formula: see text] decay into collimated pair of photons which cannot be distinguished at the LHC and may appear as diphotons instead of four photons. (2) Twin resonances, [Formula: see text] with a mass difference of about 40 GeV and both [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] decay into diphoton pairs. For productions, we consider three scenarios: (I) vector-boson fusion; (II) gluon–gluon fusion; (III) [Formula: see text] pair production. In all these scenarios with two kinds of resonances, we find the parameter space that satisfies the diphoton production cross-section from 3 to 13 fb and all the other experimental constraints. And we address the decay width as well. In particular, in the third scenario, we observe that the production cross-section is small but the decay width of [Formula: see text] or [Formula: see text] can be from 40 to 60 GeV. Even if the 750 GeV diphoton excesses were not confirmed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments, we point out that our proposal can be used to explain the current and future diphoton excesses.

Perturbativity, vacuum stability, and inflation in the light of 750 GeV diphoton excess

The recent observation of the 750 GeV diphoton excess at 13 TeV LHC has motivated many scenarios of physics beyond the Standard Model. In this work, we begin by showing that many models which explain the observed excess tend to get strongly coupled well below the Planck scale. We then study a simple scenario involving colored vector-like fermions with exotic charges, which is expected to stay weakly coupled till the Planck scale. We find the conditions under which this happens, derive the Renormalization Group equations for such models and solve them to show that perturbativity till Planck scale can be maintained for a very reasonable choice of parameters. Finally, we discuss issues related to vacuum stability and the possibility of inflation in the scenarios we study.

750 GeV diphoton resonance in a vector-like extension of Hill model at a 100 TeV hadron collider

In this paper, we study the recent 750 GeV diphoton excess in the Hill model with vector-like fermions. The singlet-like Hill boson is chosen as the 750 GeV diphoton resonance. Such a scalar is mainly produced by gluon fusion via vector-like top and bottom quark loops and decays to diphoton via the vector-like quark and lepton loops. Under the current experimental and theoretical constraints, we find that the mixing angle of the singlet and doublet Higgs bosons lies within [Formula: see text] and the 750 GeV diphoton cross-section can be maximally enhanced to about 6 fb at 13 TeV LHC. Moreover, we find that the Hill boson pair production in [Formula: see text] channel can be probed at [Formula: see text] significance if [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] at a 100 TeV collider with 3000 fb[Formula: see text] luminosity.

Revisiting light stringy states in view of the 750 GeV diphoton excess

We investigate light massive string states that appear at brane intersections. They replicate the massless spectrum in a richer fashion and may be parametrically lighter than standard Regge excitations. We identify the first few physical states and determine their BRST invariant vertex operators. In the supersymmetric case we reconstruct the super-multiplet structure. We then compute some simple interactions, such as the decay rate of a massive scalar or vector into two massless fermions. Finally we suggest an alternative interpretation of the 750 GeV diphoton excess at LHC in terms of a light massive string state, a replica of the Standard Model Higgs.

Precision tools and models to narrow in on the 750 GeV diphoton resonance

The hints for a new resonance at 750 GeV from ATLAS and CMS have triggered a significant amount of attention. Since the simplest extensions of the standard model cannot accommodate the observation, many alternatives have been considered to explain the excess. Here we focus on several proposed renormalisable weakly-coupled models and revisit results given in the literature. We point out that physically important subtleties are often missed or neglected. To facilitate the study of the excess we have created a collection of 40 model files, selected from recent literature, for the Mathematica package SARAH. With SARAH one can generate files to perform numerical studies using the tailor-made spectrum generators FlexibleSUSY and SPheno. These have been extended to automatically include crucial higher order corrections to the diphoton and digluon decay rates for both CP-even and CP-odd scalars. Additionally, we have extended the UFO and CalcHep interfaces of SARAH, to pass the precise information about the effective vertices from the spectrum generator to a Monte-Carlo tool. Finally, as an example to demonstrate the power of the entire setup, we present a new supersymmetric model that accommodates the diphoton excess, explicitly demonstrating how a large width can be obtained. We explicitly show several steps in detail to elucidate the use of these public tools in the precision study of this model.

Minimal dilaton model and the diphoton excess

In light of the recent 750 GeV diphoton excesses reported by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations, we investigate the possibility of explaining this excess using the Minimal Dilaton Model. We find that this model is able to explain the observed excess with the presence of additional top partner(s), with same charge as the top quark, but with mass in the TeV region. First, we constrain model parameters using in addition to the 750 GeV diphoton signal strength, precision electroweak tests, single top production measurements, as well as Higgs signal strength data collected in the earlier runs of the LHC. In addition we discuss interesting phenomenolgy that could arise in this model, relevant for future runs of the LHC.