Large Hadron Collider Data Research Articles

The emergence of multi-lepton anomalies at the LHC and their compatibility with new physics at the EW scale

A recent study [1] has shown that a simplified model predicting a heavy scalar of mass 270 GeV (H ) that decays to a Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson in association with a scalar singlet of mass 150 GeV (S) can accommodate several anomalous multi-lepton results in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). With this in mind, the goal of this article is to provide a more formal study of a wider set of LHC results pertaining to the production of multiple leptons. We find that a combination of such results lead to strong discrepancies between the data and SM Monte Carlo predictions. These discrepancies appear in corners of the phase-space where different SM processes dominate, indicating that the potential mismodeling of a single SM process is unlikely to explain them. Systematic uncertainties from the prediction of SM processes evaluated with currently available tools seem unable to explain away these discrepancies. A combination is able to constrain the simplified model’s single degree of freedom β2, related to the size of the Yukawa coupling of H to the top quark, to a value of 2.92 ± 0.35. This is in contrast to the absence of signal, where βg = 0. This result is discussed in the independent contexts of both potential for new physics in the existing LHC data as well as the limitations of our current understanding of the SM. That being said, QCD NNLO and EW NLO corrections in di-lepton final states are not expected to change the conclusions of this study. New results pertaining to the production of two opposite sign different flavour charged leptons with a full jet veto further confirm the presence of anomalies in similar corners of the leptonic phase-space.

Fluctuations in heavy-ion collisions generated by QCD interactions in the color glass condensate effective theory

Since their discovery, fluctuations in the initial state of heavy-ion collisions have been understood as originating mostly from the random positions of nucleons within the colliding nuclei. We consider an alternative approach where all the focus is on fluctuations generated by QCD interactions, that we evaluate at leading logarithmic accuracy in the color glass condensate effective theory. We validate our approach using BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data on anisotropic flow. In particular, we show that, compared to standard Glauber-inspired calculations, our formalism provides a better description of the centrality dependence of the ratio of elliptic flow and triangular flow. It also naturally explains the evolution of elliptic flow fluctuations between RHIC and LHC energies.

High energy interactions of cosmic rays

A discussion of a number of important topics related to modeling of high energy cosmic ray interactions is presented. Special attention is devoted to novel theoretical approaches employed in event generators of hadronic interactions and to the impact of experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In relation to studies of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs), differences between various predictions for basic characteristics of UHECR-induced extensive air showers in the atmosphere are analyzed and traced down to differences in the respective treatments of hadronic interactions. Possibilities to discriminate between the alternative approaches, based on LHC and UHECR data, are demonstrated and the relation to UHECR primary composition is outlined. Finally, in relation to direct studies of charged cosmic rays, potential improvements of the treatment of cosmic ray interactions at low and intermediate energies are discussed.

Simultaneous description of hadron and jet suppression in heavy-ion collisions

We present a global fit to all data on the suppression of high-energy jets and high-energy hadrons in the most central heavy-ion collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for two different collision energies, within a hybrid strong-weak coupling quenching model. Even though the measured suppression factors for hadrons and jets differ significantly from one another and appear to asymptote to different values in the high-energy limit, we obtain a simultaneous description of all these data after constraining the value of a single model parameter. We use our model to investigate the origin of the difference between the observed suppression of jets and hadrons and relate it, quantitatively, to the observed modification of the jet fragmentation function in jets that have been modified by passage through the medium produced in heavy-ion collisions. In particular, the observed increase in the fraction of hard fragments in medium-modified jets, which indicates that jets with the fewest hardest fragments lose the least energy, corresponds quantitatively to the observed difference between the suppression of hadrons and jets. We argue that a harder fragmentation pattern for jets with a given energy after quenching is a generic feature of any mechanism for the interaction between jets and the medium that they traverse that yields a larger suppression for wider jets. We also compare the results of our global fit to LHC data to measurements of the suppression of high-energy hadrons in BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) collisions, and find that with its parameter chosen to fit the LHC data, our model is inconsistent with the RHIC data at the $3\ensuremath{\sigma}$ level, suggesting that hard probes interact more strongly with the less hot quark-gluon plasma produced at RHIC.

Gravity Beyond Einstein? Part II: Fundamental Physical Principles, Number Systems, Novel Groups, Dark Energy, and Dark Matter, MOND

Abstract This article attempts to explain the underlying physics of several recent experiments and astrophysical observations that have been mystifying the physics community for quite some time. So far, none of the advanced theories beyond the standard models of particle physics and cosmology have shown sufficient potential to resolve these mysteries. The reason for this failure may lie in the fact that these theories are based on the concept of extra space dimensions that appears to be in conflict with numerous experiments, in particular with recent Large Hadron Collider data. Therefore, the novel idea of extra number systems is introduced, replacing the idea of extra space dimensions. This approach is complemented by a set of fundamental physical principles that provide the constraints and guidelines for a modified physical formulation in agreement with known experimental reality. However, such a theory requires novel physical concepts in conjunction with novel symmetry groups. These groups give rise to additional types of matter, termed hypercomplex masses (which are responsible for the extreme hypercomplex gravitational fields, see below, and are also denoted as matter flavour), including, for instance, particles of negative mass, identified with dark matter. Furthermore, four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime, assumed to be a quasi de Sitter space d S 1 , 3 $dS^{1,3}$ dual spacetime, D d S 1 , 3 $DdS^{1,3}$ , with imaginary time coordinate; that is, time is a complex quantity. The three spatial coordinates are shared by the two spacetimes. Dark matter is assumed to reside in D d S 1 , 3 $DdS^{1,3}$ and therefore is principally invisible. On the other hand, its gravitational interaction with ordinary matter (m ≥ 0) in spacetime d S 1 , 3 $dS^{1,3}$ is directly perceptible. The novel group structure predicts the existence of a fourth particle family of negative masses; that is, besides the dark matter particle χ of mass m χ ≈ − 80.77 $m_{\chi}\approx-80.77$ GeV/c2, there is the dark neutrino νχ of mass m ν χ ≈ − 3.23 $m_{\nu_{\chi}}\approx-3.23$ eV/c2. Moreover, the hypercomplex group structure of gravity ( S U ( 2 ) × S U ( 2 ) $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ ) postulates three gravitational bosons for cosmological fields [resulting from Einstein’s theory of general relativity (GR)], the graviton ν G N $\nu_{G_{N}}$ with spin 2, the novel gravitophoton ν g p $\nu_{gp}$ with spin 1 (existence of weak gravitomagnetic fields of GR), and the quintessence particle νq with spin 0, which, when present, mediates an interaction between ordinary matter (m ≥ 0) and the ubiquitous scalar field of dark energy. In addition, the existence of extreme gravity fields (hypercomplex gravity) is postulated, based on the second group SU(2), and an interaction between electromagnetism and hypercomplex gravity is predicted, mediated by three additional hypercomplex-gravity bosons. Some long-standing problems of cosmology will be addressed; namely, the Big Bang scenario and the origin of dark energy and the nature of dark matter and their relation to the modified Newtonian dynamics hypothesis will be discussed.

Accelerating the BSM interpretation of LHC data with machine learning

The interpretation of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data in the framework of Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) theories is hampered by the need to run computationally expensive event generators and detector simulators. Performing statistically convergent scans of high-dimensional BSM theories is consequently challenging, and in practice unfeasible for very high-dimensional BSM theories. We present here a new machine learning method that accelerates the interpretation of LHC data, by learning the relationship between BSM theory parameters and data. As a proof-of-concept, we demonstrate that this technique accurately predicts natural SUSY signal events in two signal regions at the High Luminosity LHC, up to four orders of magnitude faster than standard techniques. The new approach makes it possible to rapidly and accurately reconstruct the theory parameters of complex BSM theories, should an excess in the data be discovered at the LHC.

Nonlinear coupling of flow harmonics in heavy-ion collisions

Anisotropic flow coefficients beyond triangular flow receive important contributions from lower-order harmonics through nonlinear coupling. We present a theoretical framework which allows one to quantify the contribution induced by such nonlinear coupling to any flow harmonic of any order. We show the effectiveness of this formalism through an application to hexagonal flow, V6. We study, in particular, the coupling of V6 to triangular flow, V3, in Pb+Pb collisions at s=2.76TeV, using both Large Hadron Collider data and event-by-event hydrodynamic calculations.

Signature of gluon saturation in forward di-hadron correlations at the Large Hadron Collider

We argue that gluon saturation effects may be visible in Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data. We look at the centrality dependence of the away-side peak of two-particle correlations measured in p-Pb collisions, using both ALICE data at midrapidity, and LHCb data at forward rapidity. Once the collective flow-like signal measured at the near-side peak is removed from the correlation function, the centrality dependence of the away-side peak turns out to be much stronger in the forward region than at midrapidity. We argue that this is a very specific prediction of the saturation framework, and we compare LHCb data to a state-of-the-art calculation within the Color Glass Condensate theory.

Constraining resonant dark matter with combined LHC electroweakino searches

In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model light neutralinos can satisfy the dark matter (DM) abundance constraint by resonant annihilation via a Z or a light Higgs (h) boson. In this work we study the current and future status of this scenario by investigating relevant experimental constraints, including DM direct detection, measurements of Z and Higgs invisible decays, and direct searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). To take full advantage of the LHC data, we combine the results of all relevant electroweakino searches performed by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration. Such combination increases the bound on the Higgsino mass parameter to |μ|>390GeV, which is about 80 GeV stricter than the bound obtained from individual analyses. In a simplified model we find that the Z funnel region is on the brink of exclusion, the h funnel for μ<0 only survives if tan⁡β<7.4, and the h funnel for μ>0 is the main surviving region. Future DM direct detection experiments, such as LUX and ZEPLIN, can explore the whole region, while the high luminosity LHC can exclude tan⁡β>8 for μ>0 and tan⁡β>5.5 for μ<0. After applying the muon anomalous magnetic moment constraint only a tiny part of the Z/h funnel region survives which will soon be probed by ongoing experiments.

Harvester : an edge service harvesting heterogeneous resources for ATLAS

The Production and Distributed Analysis (PanDA) system has been successfully used in the ATLAS experiment as a data-driven workload management system. The PanDA system has proven to be capable of operating at the Large Hadron Collider data processing scale over the last decade including the Run 1 and Run 2 data taking periods. PanDA was originally designed to be weakly coupled with the WLCG processing resources. Lately the system is revealing the difficulties to optimally integrate and exploit new resource types such as HPC and preemptible cloud resources with instant spin-up, and new workflows such as the event service, because their intrinsic nature and requirements are quite different from that of traditional grid resources. Therefore, a new component, Harvester, has been developed to mediate the control and information flow between PanDA and the resources, in order to enable more intelligent workload management and dynamic resource provisioning based on detailed knowledge of resource capabilities and their real-time state. Harvester has been designed around a modular structure to separate core functions and resource specific plugins, simplifying the operation with heterogeneous resources and providing a uniform monitoring view. This paper will give an overview of the Harvester architecture, current status with various resources, and future plans.

Top quark polarization as a probe of charged Higgs bosons

We study the production and decay of a heavy charged Higgs boson in the $bg\to tH^-$ and $H^-\to b\bar t$ processes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We show that the chiral structure of the $H^-t\bar b$ vertex entering both stages is sensitive to the underlying Higgs mechanism of Electro-Weak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB) and we specifically demonstrate that one could distinguish between two popular realizations of a 2-Higgs Double Model (2HDM) embedding a new $H^\pm$ state, i.e., those with Type-I and -Y Yukawa couplings. The chiral structure of such a vertex, which is different in the two cases, in turn triggers a particular spin state of the top quark which is then transmitted to its decay products. Hence, both inclusive rates and exclusive observables can be used to extract the presence of such a charged Higgs boson state in LHC data.

Effect of single string structure and multiple string interaction on strange particle production in pp collisions at s=7TeV

We present a systematic study on the strange particle production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in proton-proton (pp) collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 7 TeV based on PACIAE simulations. Two different mechanisms accounting for single string structure variations and multiple string interactions are implemented in the simulations. These modifications give rise to increased effective string tension in the Lund fragmentation model and generate more strange particles in the hadronic final state. By comparing the results with a wealth of the LHC data, it is turned out that the inclusion of variable effective string tension is capable to reach an improved agreement between theory and experiment, especially on the recently observed multiplicity dependence of strangeness enhancement in pp collisions. This approach provides us a new method to understand the microscopic picture of the novel high multiplicity pp events collected at the LHC in the string fragmentation framework.

Phenomenology of 2HDM with vectorlike quarks

In this paper, we examine the consistency of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data collected during Runs 1 and 2 by the ATLAS and CMS experiments with the predictions of a 2-Higgs doublet model embedding vectorlike quarks (VLQs) for $pp\ensuremath{\rightarrow}H$, $A$ production and $H$, $A\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\gamma}$ decay mechanisms, respectively, of (nearly) degenerate $CP$-even ($H$) and $CP$-odd ($A$) Higgs bosons. We show that a scenario containing one single VLQ with electromagnetic charge $2/3$ can explain the above ATLAS and CMS data for masses in the region $350\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}\ensuremath{\le}{m}_{\mathrm{VLQ}}\ensuremath{\le}1.5\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$ or so, depending on $\mathrm{tan}\ensuremath{\beta}$, and for several values of the mixing angle between the top quark ($t$) and its VLQ counterpart ($T$). We then perform a global fit onto the model by including all relevant experimental as well as theoretical constraints. The surviving samples of our analysis are discussed within $2\ensuremath{\sigma}$ of the LHC measurements. Additionally, we also comment on the recent anomalous result reported by CMS using Run 2 data on the associated Standard Model Higgs boson production with top quark pairs $pp\ensuremath{\rightarrow}t\overline{t}h$ with an observed significance of $3.3\ensuremath{\sigma}$. Other than these specific examples, we also present a phenomenological analysis of the main features of the model, including the most promising $T$ decay channels.

Nonlinear coupling of flow harmonics: Hexagonal flow and beyond

Higher Fourier harmonics of anisotropic flow ($v_4$ and beyond) get large contributions induced by elliptic and triangular flow through nonlinear response. We present a general framework of nonlinear hydrodynamic response which encompasses the existing one, and allows to take into account the mutual correlation between the nonlinear couplings affecting Fourier harmonics of any order. Using Large Hadron Collider data on Pb+Pb collisions at ~$\sqrt[]{s}=2.76$ TeV, we perform an application of our formalism to hexagonal flow, $v_6$, a coefficient affected by several nonlinear contributions which are of the same order of magnitude. We obtain the first experimental measure of the coefficient $\chi_{624}$, which couples $v_6$ to $v_2$ and $v_4$. This is achieved by putting together the information from several analyses: event-plane correlations, symmetric cumulants, as well as new higher-order moments recently analyzed by the ALICE collaboration. The value of $\chi_{624}$ extracted from data is in fair agreement with hydrodynamic calculations, although with large error bars, which would be dramatically reduced by a dedicated analysis. We argue that within our formalism the nonlinear structure of a given higher harmonic can be determined more accurately than the harmonic itself, and we emphasize potential applications to future measurements of $v_7$ and $v_8$.

Lepton-flavour-violating gluonic operators: constraints from the LHC and low energy experiments

Effective operators provide a model-independent description of physics beyond the standard model that is particularly useful given the absence of any signs of new physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We recast previous LHC analyses to set limits on lepton-flavour-violating gluonic effective operators of dimension 8 and compare our results to existing limits from low-energy precision experiments. Current LHC data constrains the scale Λ of the effective operators to be larger than Λ ≳ 0.5 − 1.6 TeV depending on the flavour and thus provides the most stringent limit for all operators apart from parity-conserving operators of the form GGoverline{mu}{P}_{L,R}e , where μ-e conversion in nuclei poses the most stringent constraint.

Constraining the compressed spectrum of the top squark and chargino along the W corridor

Studying superpartner production together with a hard initial state radiation (ISR) jet has been a useful strategy for searches of supersymmetry with a compressed spectrum at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the case of the top squark (stop), the ratio of the missing transverse momentum from the lightest neutralinos and the ISR momentum, defined as $\bar{R}_M$, turns out to be an effective variable to distinguish the signal from the backgrounds. It has helped to exclude the stop mass below 590 GeV along the top corridor where $m_{\tilde{t}} - m_{\tilde{\chi}_1^0} \approx m_t$. On the other hand, the current experimental limit is still rather weak in the $W$ corridor where $m_{\tilde{t}} - m_{\tilde{\chi}_1^0} \approx m_W +m_b$. In this work we extend this strategy to the parameter region around the $W$ corridor by considering the one lepton final state. In this case the kinematic constraints are insufficient to completely determine the neutrino momentum which is required to calculate $\bar{R}_M$. However, the minimum value of $\bar{R}_M$ consistent with the kinematic constraints still provides a useful discriminating variable, allowing the exclusion reach of the stop mass to be extended to $\sim 550$ GeV based on the current 36 fb$^{-1}$ LHC data. The same method can also be applied to the chargino search with $m_{\tilde{\chi}_1^\pm} -m_{\tilde{\chi}_1^0} \approx m_W$ because the analysis does not rely on $b$ jets. If no excess is present in the current data, a chargino mass of 300 GeV along the $W$ corridor can be excluded, beyond the limit obtained from the multilepton search.

Associated production of a Higgs boson decaying into bottom quarks at the LHC in full NNLO QCD

We consider the production of a Standard Model Higgs boson decaying to bottom quarks in association with a vector boson W±/Z in hadron collisions. We present a fully exclusive calculation of QCD radiative corrections both for the production cross section and for the Higgs boson decay rate up to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) accuracy. Our calculation also includes the leptonic decay of the vector boson with finite-width effects and spin correlations. We consider typical kinematical cuts applied in the experimental analyses at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and we find that the full NNLO QCD corrections significantly decrease the accepted cross section and have a substantial impact on the shape of distributions. We point out that these additional effects are essential to obtain precise theoretical predictions to be compared with the LHC data.

Common origin of 3.55 keV x-ray line and gauge coupling unification with left-right dark matter

We present a minimal left-right dark matter framework that can simultaneously explain the recently observed 3.55 keV x-ray line from several galaxy clusters and gauge coupling unification at high energy scale. Adopting a minimal dark matter strategy, we consider both left and right handed triplet fermionic dark matter candidates which are stable by virtue of a remnant ${\mathcal{Z}}_{2}\ensuremath{\simeq}(\ensuremath{-}1{)}^{B\ensuremath{-}L}$ symmetry arising after the spontaneous symmetry breaking of left-right gauge symmetry to that of the standard model. A scalar bitriplet field is incorporated whose first role is to allow radiative decay of right handed triplet dark matter into the left handed one and a photon with energy 3.55 keV. The other role this bitriplet field at TeV scale plays is to assist in achieving gauge coupling unification at a high energy scale within a nonsupersymmetric $SO(10)$ model while keeping the scale of left-right gauge symmetry around the TeV corner. Apart from solving the neutrino mass problem and giving verifiable new contributions to neutrinoless double beta decay and charged lepton flavor violation, the model with TeV scale gauge bosons can also give rise to interesting collider signatures like diboson excess, dilepton plus two jets excess reported recently in the large hadron collider data.

Federated data storage system prototype for LHC experiments and data intensive science

Rapid increase of data volume from the experiments running at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) prompted physics computing community to evaluate new data handling and processing solutions. Russian grid sites and universities’ clusters scattered over a large area aim at the task of uniting their resources for future productive work, at the same time giving an opportunity to support large physics collaborations. In our project we address the fundamental problem of designing a computing architecture to integrate distributed storage resources for LHC experiments and other data-intensive science applications and to provide access to data from heterogeneous computing facilities. Studies include development and implementation of federated data storage prototype for Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) centres of different levels and University clusters within one National Cloud. The prototype is based on computing resources located in Moscow, Dubna, Saint Petersburg, Gatchina and Geneva. This project intends to implement a federated distributed storage for all kind of operations such as read/write/transfer and access via WAN from Grid centres, university clusters, supercomputers, academic and commercial clouds. The efficiency and performance of the system are demonstrated using synthetic and experiment-specific tests including real data processing and analysis workflows from ATLAS and ALICE experiments, as well as compute-intensive bioinformatics applications (PALEOMIX) running on supercomputers. We present topology and architecture of the designed system, report performance and statistics for different access patterns and show how federated data storage can be used efficiently by physicists and biologists. We also describe how sharing data on a widely distributed storage system can lead to a new computing model and reformations of computing style, for instance how bioinformatics program running on supercomputers can read/write data from the federated storage.

PanDA for ATLAS distributed computing in the next decade

The Production and Distributed Analysis (PanDA) system has been developed to meet ATLAS production and analysis requirements for a data-driven workload management system capable of operating at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data processing scale. Heterogeneous resources used by the ATLAS experiment are distributed worldwide at hundreds of sites, thousands of physicists analyse the data remotely, the volume of processed data is beyond the exabyte scale, dozens of scientific applications are supported, while data processing requires more than a few billion hours of computing usage per year. PanDA performed very well over the last decade including the LHC Run 1 data taking period. However, it was decided to upgrade the whole system concurrently with the LHC’s first long shutdown in order to cope with rapidly changing computing infrastructure. After two years of reengineering efforts, PanDA has embedded capabilities for fully dynamic and flexible workload management. The static batch job paradigm was discarded in favor of a more automated and scalable model. Workloads are dynamically tailored for optimal usage of resources, with the brokerage taking network traffic and forecasts into account. Computing resources are partitioned based on dynamic knowledge of their status and characteristics. The pilot has been re-factored around a plugin structure for easier development and deployment. Bookkeeping is handled with both coarse and fine granularities for efficient utilization of pledged or opportunistic resources. An in-house security mechanism authenticates the pilot and data management services in off-grid environments such as volunteer computing and private local clusters. The PanDA monitor has been extensively optimized for performance and extended with analytics to provide aggregated summaries of the system as well as drill-down to operational details. There are as well many other challenges planned or recently implemented, and adoption by non-LHC experiments such as bioinformatics groups successfully running Paleomix (microbial genome and metagenomes) payload on supercomputers. In this paper we will focus on the new and planned features that are most important to the next decade of distributed computing workload management.