Evidence for Factorization Breaking in Diffractive Low-Q^2 Dijet Production

We calculate diffractive dijet production in deep-inelastic scattering at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD, including contributions from direct and resolved photons, and compare our predictions to preliminary data from the H1 collaboration at HERA. In contrast to recent experimental claims, evidence for factorization breaking is found only for resolved, and not direct, photon contributions. No evidence is found for large normalization uncertainties in diffractive parton densities. The results confirm theoretical expectations for the (non-)cancellation of soft singularities in diffractive scattering as well as previous results for (almost) real photoproduction.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Non-Diagonal and Mixed Squark Production at Hadron Colliders

We calculate squared helicity amplitudes for non-diagonal and mixed squark pair production at hadron colliders, taking into account not only loop-induced QCD diagrams, but also previously unconsidered electroweak channels, which turn out to be dominant. Mixing effects are included for both top and bottom squarks. Numerical results are presented for several SUSY benchmark scenarios at both the CERN LHC and the Fermilab Tevatron, including the possibilities of light stops or sbottoms. The latter should be easily observed at the Tevatron in associated production of stops and sbottoms for a large range of stop masses and almost independently of the stop mixing angle. Asymmetry measurements for light stops at the polarized BNL RHIC collider are also briefly discussed.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure

Suppression factors in diffractive photoproduction of dijets

After new publications of H1 data for the diffractive photoproduction of dijets, which overlap with the earlier published H1 data and the recently published data of the ZEUS collaboration, have appeared, we have recalculated the cross sections for this process in next-to-leading order (NLO) of perturbative QCD to see whether they can be interpreted consistently. The results of these calculations are compared to the data of both collaborations. We find that the NLO cross sections disagree with the data, showing that factorization breaking occurs at that order. If direct and resolved contributions are both suppressed by the same amount, the global suppression factor depends on the transverse-energy cut. However, by suppressing only the resolved contribution, also reasonably good agreement with all the data is found with a suppression factor independent of the transverse-energy cut.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, 3 table

New Results for Light Gravitinos at Hadron Colliders - Tevatron Limits and LHC Perspectives

We derive Feynman rules for the interactions of a single gravitino with (s)quarks and gluons/gluinos from an effective supergravity Lagrangian in non-derivative form and use them to calculate the hadroproduction cross sections and decay widths of single gravitinos. We confirm the results obtained previously with a derivative Lagrangian as well as those obtained with the non-derivative Lagrangian in the high-energy limit and elaborate on the connection between gauge independence and the presence of quartic vertices. We perform extensive numerical studies of branching ratios, total cross sections, and transverse-momentum spectra at the Tevatron and the LHC. From the latest CDF monojet cross section limit, we derive a new and robust exclusion contour in the gravitino-squark/gluino mass plane, implying that gravitinos with masses below $2\cdot10^{-5}$ to $1\cdot10^{-5}$ eV are excluded for squark/gluino-masses below 200 and 500 GeV, respectively. These limits are complementary to the one obtained by the CDF collaboration, $1.1\cdot 10^{-5}$ eV, under the assumption of infinitely heavy squarks and gluinos. For the LHC, we conclude that SUSY scenarios with light gravitinos will lead to a striking monojet signal very quickly after its startup.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures. Tevatron limit improved and unitarity limit included. Version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Transverse-Momentum Resummation for Slepton-Pair Production at the LHC

We perform a first precision calculation of the transverse-momentum (q_T) distribution of slepton pair and slepton-sneutrino associated production at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We implement soft-gluon resummation at the next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) level and consistently match the obtained result to the pure fixed-order perturbative result at leading order (LO) in the QCD coupling constant, i.e. O(alpha_s). We give numerical predictions for stau_1 stau_1^* and stau_1 sneutrino_tau^* + stau_1^* sneutrino_tau production, also implementing recent parameterizations of non-perturbative effects. The results show a relevant contribution of resummation both in the small and intermediate q_T-regions and little dependence on unphysical scales and non-perturbative contributions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Dijet photoproduction of massless charm jets at next-to-leading order of QCD

We compute the charm dijet photoproduction cross section at next-to-leading order of QCD in the zero-mass variable flavour number scheme, i.e. with active charm quarks in the proton and photon. The results are compared to recent measurements from the ZEUS experiment at HERA. The predictions for various distributions agree well with the data, in particular for large momentum fractions of the the partons in the photon, where direct photon processes dominate. At low momentum fractions, the predictions are quite sensitive to the charm content in the photon. The experimental data are shown to favour parameterizations with a substantial charm quark density such as the one proposed by Cornet et al.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure

How robust is a thermal photon interpretation of the ALICE low-p_T data?

We present a rigorous theoretical analysis of the ALICE measurement of low-p_T direct-photon production in central lead-lead collisions at the LHC with a centre-of-mass energy of \sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76 TeV. Using NLO QCD, we compute the relative contributions to prompt-photon production from different initial and final states and the theoretical uncertainties coming from independent variations of the renormalisation and factorisation scales, the nuclear parton densities and the fragmentation functions. Based on different fits to the unsubtracted and prompt-photon subtracted ALICE data, we consistently find T = 304 \pm 58 MeV and 309 \pm 64 MeV for the effective temperature of the quark-gluon plasma (or hot medium) at p_T \in [0.8;2.2] GeV and p_T \in [1.5;3.5] GeV as well as a power-law (p_T^{-4}) behavior for p_T > 4 GeV as predicted by QCD hard scattering.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl

Factorization Breaking in Dijet Photoproduction with a Leading Neutron

The production of dijets with a leading neutron in ep-interactions at HERA is calculated in leading order and next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD using a pion-exchange model. Differential cross sections for deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) and photoproduction are presented as a function of several kinematic variables. By comparing the theoretical predictions for DIS dijets to recent H1 data, the pion flux factor together with the parton distribution functions of the pion is determined. The dijet cross sections in photoproduction show factorization breaking if compared to the H1 photoproduction data. The suppression factor is S = 0.48 (0.64) for resolved (global) suppression.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

A singlet doublet dark matter model with radiative neutrino masses

We present a detailed study of a combined singlet-doublet scalar and singlet-doublet fermion model for dark matter. These models have only been studied separately in the past. We show that their combination allows for the radiative generation of neutrino masses, but that it also implies the existence of lepton-flavour violating (LFV) processes. We first analyse the dark matter, neutrino mass and LFV aspects separately. We then perform two random scans for scalar dark matter imposing Higgs mass, relic density and neutrino mass constraints, one over the full parameter space, the other over regions where scalar-fermion coannihilations become important. In the first case, a large part of the new parameter space is excluded by LFV, and the remaining models will be probed by XENONnT. In the second case, direct detection cross sections are generally too small, but a substantial part of the viable models will be tested by future LFV experiments. Possible constraints from the LHC are also discussed.Comment: 27 pages, 18 figures, 2 table