Sensitivities to New Resonance Couplings to $W$-Bosons at the LHC

Abstract

We propose a search strategy at the HL-LHC for a new neutral particle $X$ that couples to $W$-bosons, using the process $pp\to W^{\pm }X(\to W^{+}{W}^{-})$ with a tri-$W$-boson final state. Focusing on events with two same-sign leptonic $W$-boson decays into muons and a hadronically decaying $W$-boson, our method leverages the enhanced signal-to-background discrimination achieved through a machine-learning-based multivariate analysis. Using the heavy photophobic axion-like particle (ALP) as a benchmark, we evaluate the discovery sensitivities on both production cross section times branching ratio $\sigma (pp\to W^{\pm }X)\times \text{Br}(X\to W^{+}{W}^{-})$ and the coupling $g_{aWW}$ for the particle mass over a wide range of 170-3000 GeV at the HL-LHC with center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV and integrated luminosity $\mathcal{L}=3$ ${\text{ab}}^{-1}$. Our results show significant improvements in discovery sensitivity, particularly for masses above 300 GeV, compared to existing limits derived from CMS analyses of Standard Model (SM) tri-$W$-boson production at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. This study demonstrates the potential of advanced selection techniques in probing the coupling of new particles to $W$-bosons and highlights the HL-LHC's capability to explore the physics beyond the SM.

22 pages, 3 tables, 13 figures; more MVA detailed analysis added; typos and errors corrected; style updated; CPC accepted version

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• Searching for long-lived axion-like particles via displaced vertices at the HL-LHC