On the challenges of searching for GeV-scale long-lived particles at the LHC
arXiv:2011.06604 · doi:10.1007/JHEP04(2021)210
Abstract
Many models of dark matter predict long-lived particles (LLPs) that can give rise to striking signatures at the LHC. Existing searches for displaced vertices are however tailored towards heavy LLPs. In this work we show that this bias severely affects their sensitivity to LLPs with masses at the GeV scale. To illustrate this point we consider two dark sector models with light LLPs that decay hadronically: a strongly-interacting dark sector with long-lived exotic mesons, and a Higgsed dark sector with a long-lived dark Higgs boson. We study the sensitivity of an existing ATLAS search for displaced vertices and missing energy in these two models and find that current track and vertex cuts result in very low efficiency for light LLPs. To close this gap in the current search programme we suggest two possible modifications of the vertex reconstruction and the analysis cuts. We calculate projected exclusion limits for these modifications and show that they greatly enhance the sensitivity to LLPs with low mass or short decay lengths.
arXiv comment19 pages, 9 figures; v2 matches published version
References in corpus (47)
- 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
- FastJet user manual
- DELPHES 3, A modular framework for fast simulation of a generic collider experiment
- Echoes of a Hidden Valley at Hadron Colliders
- Physics Beyond Colliders at CERN: Beyond the Standard Model Working Group Report
- Compatibility of DAMA/LIBRA dark matter detection with other searches
- The SIMPlest Miracle
- Finding an Upper Limit in the Presence of Unknown Background
- Probing a Secluded U(1) at B-factories
- Searching for long-lived particles beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider
- Emerging Jets
- Review of strongly-coupled composite dark matter models and lattice simulations
- Semi-visible Jets: Dark Matter Undercover at the LHC
- Gauge Theory for Baryon and Lepton Numbers with Leptoquarks
- Discovering Inelastic Thermal-Relic Dark Matter at Colliders
- Inelastic Dark Matter at the LHC Lifetime Frontier: ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, CODEX-b, FASER, and MATHUSLA
- Collider Searches for Long-Lived Particles Beyond the Standard Model
- Freeze-In Dark Matter with Displaced Signatures at Colliders
- Visible Effects of Invisible Hidden Valley Radiation
- Cosmology and Accelerator Tests of Strongly Interacting Dark Matter
- LHC-friendly minimal freeze-in models
- LHC Searches for Dark Sector Showers
- Weakly Interacting Stable Pions
- Discerning Secluded Sector gauge structures
- How to save the WIMP: global analysis of a dark matter model with two s-channel mediators
- Anomaly-Free Dark Matter Models are not so Simple
- Searching for Confining Hidden Valleys at the LHC(b)
- Searches for light sterile neutrinos with multitrack displaced vertices
- Theory for Baryon Number and Dark Matter at the LHC
- Invisible and displaced dark matter signatures at Belle II
- Baryonic Dark Matter
- Singlet-Doublet Dark Matter Freeze-in: LHC displaced signatures versus cosmology
- Strongly interacting dark sectors in the early Universe and at the LHC through a simplified portal
- A deep neural network to search for new long-lived particles decaying to jets
- A flavoured dark sector
- Casting a graph net to catch dark showers
- Light dark Higgs boson in minimal sub-GeV dark matter scenarios
- Hunting the dark Higgs
- Collider phenomenology of Hidden Valley mediators of spin 0 or 1/2 with semivisible jets
- Impact of Mass Generation for Simplified Dark Matter Models
- Probing Dark Matter freeze-in with long-lived particle signatures: MATHUSLA, HL-LHC and FCC-hh
- Displaced Vertices from Pseudo-Dirac Dark Matter
- On the LHC sensitivity for non-thermalised hidden sectors
- Anomaly-free Dark Matter with Harmless Direct Detection Constraints
- LHC Phenomenology of Dark Matter with a Color-Octet Partner
- Whac-a-constraint with anomaly-free dark matter models
Cited by in corpus (8)
- Perturbative benchmark models for a dark shower search program
- Dark Higgs Bosons at Colliders
- Collider Searches for Dark Matter through the Higgs Lens
- Energetic long-lived particles in the CMS muon chambers
- Forecasting dark showers at Belle II
- Dark matter relic density in strongly interacting dark sectors with light vector mesons
- Equivariant, Safe and Sensitive -- Graph Networks for New Physics
- Systematic analysis of search strategies for gauge bosons at Belle II