On a possible large width 750 GeV diphoton resonance at ATLAS and CMS

Abstract

The ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC have reported an excess of diphoton events with invariant mass around 750 GeV, with local significance of about $3.6\sigma$ and $2.6\sigma$, respectively. We entertain the possibility that this excess is due to new physics, in which case the data suggest a new particle with 13 TeV LHC production cross section times diphoton branching ratio of about 5~fb. Interestingly, ATLAS reports a mild preference for a sizeable width for the signal of about 45 GeV; this result appears consistent with CMS, and is further supported by improving the compatibility of the 8 TeV and 13 TeV analyses. We focus on the possibility that the new state is a scalar. First, we show that, in addition to the new state that is needed directly to produce the diphoton bump, yet more new particles beyond the Standard Model are needed to induce diphoton decay rate of the right size. Second, we note that if the excess is attributed to the Breit-Wigner peak of a single new state, then the signal strength and width -- taken together -- suggest a total LHC production cross section of order $10^5$ fb. Restricting to perturbative models without ad-hoc introduction of many new states or exotic charges, we reach the following conclusions: (i) Gluon-fusion cannot explain the required large production cross section. (ii) Tree level production from initial state quarks cannot explain the required branching ratio to two photons. (iii) Tree level production is constrained by flavor data as well as LHC Run-I and Tevatron dijet analyses. Insisting on a large width we are led to suggest that more than one scalar states, nearly degenerate in mass, could conspire to produce an observed wide bump.

v2: A discussion concerning the flavor constraints in the U(2) symmetry limit added. Contours in Fig. 1 modified. Conclusions left unchanged v3: Journal published version. A discussion concerning the interference in $t\bar{t}$ searches is added

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