Simplified Limits on Resonances at the LHC

Abstract

In the earliest stages of evaluating new collider data, especially if a small excess may be present, it would be useful to have a method for comparing the data with entire classes of models, to get an immediate sense of which classes could conceivably be relevant. In this paper, we propose a method that applies when the new physics invoked to explain the excess corresponds to the production and decay of a single, relatively narrow, $s$-channel resonance. A simplifed model of the resonance allows us to convert an estimated signal cross section into model-independent bounds on the product of the branching ratios corresponding to production and decay. This quickly reveals whether a given class of models could possibly produce a signal of the required size at the LHC. Our work sets up a general framework, outlines how it operates for resonances with different numbers of production and decay modes, and analyzes cases of current experimental interest, including resonances decaying to dibosons, diphotons, dileptons, or dijets. If the LHC experiments were to report their searches for new resonances beyond the standard model in the simplified limits variable $\zeta$ defined in this paper, that would make it far easier to avoid blind alleys and home in on the most likely candidate models to explain any observed excesses.

arXiv comment31 pages, png and pdf figures embedded; title change and other minor changes in response to referee comments

References in corpus (27)

• A Large Mass Hierarchy from a Small Extra Dimension
• The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations
• An Introduction to PYTHIA 8.2
• LHAPDF6: parton density access in the LHC precision era
• New parton distribution functions from a global analysis of quantum chromodynamics
• The Physics of Heavy Z' Gauge Bosons
• Z-prime Gauge Bosons at the Tevatron
• What is the gamma gamma resonance at 750 GeV?
• Top Production: Sensitivity to New Physics
• Search for high-mass diboson resonances with boson-tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Search for New Phenomena in Dijet Mass and Angular Distributions from $pp$ Collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS Detector
• CT14QED PDFs from Isolated Photon Production in Deep Inelastic Scattering
• Search for resonances in diphoton events at $\sqrt{s}$=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• New Strong Interactons at the Tevatron ?
• Coupling--mass mapping of di-jet peak searches
• Heavy octets and Tevatron signals with three or four b jets
• Searches for Dijet Resonances at Hadron Colliders
• Search for resonances in the mass distribution of jet pairs with one or two jets identified as $b$-jets in proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
• QCD Signatures of Narrow Graviton Resonances in Hadron Colliders
• Distinguishing Di-jet Resonances at the LHC
• Constraints on the Scalar Sector of the Renormalizable Coloron Model
• Top Quark Signature in Extended Color Theories
• Distinguishing Color-Octet and Color-Singlet Resonances at the Large Hadron Collider
• Distinguishing Flavor Non-universal Colorons from Z' Bosons at the LHC
• LHC Constraints on a Higgs Partner from an Extended Color Sector
• Vacuum Stability and Triviality Analyses of the Renormalizable Coloron Model
• Diphoton Resonances in the Renormalizable Coloron Model

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Search for narrow resonances in the b-tagged dijet mass spectrum in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 8 TeV
• $R_K$ anomalies and simplified limits on $Z^{\prime }$ models at the LHC
• Electroweak symmetry breaking and collider signatures in the next-to-minimal composite Higgs model
• Broadening the Reach of Simplified Limits on Resonances at the LHC
• Direct Constraints, Flavor Physics, and Flavor Anomalies in Composite Higgs Models
• Narrow Resonances Revisited -- Simplifying Multidimensional Constraints