Measuring spin and CP from semi-hadronic ZZ decays using jet substructure

We apply novel jet techniques to investigate the spin and CP quantum numbers of a heavy resonance X, singly produced in pp -> X -> ZZ -> l(+)l(-)jj at the LHC. We take into account all dominant background processes to show that this channel, which has been considered unobservable until now, can qualify under realistic conditions to supplement measurements of the purely leptonic decay channels X -> ZZ -> 4l. We perform a detailed investigation of spin- and CP-sensitive angular observables on the fully-simulated final state for various spin and CP quantum numbers of the state X, tracing how potential sensitivity communicates through all the steps of a subjet analysis. This allows us to elaborate on the prospects and limitations of performing such measurements with the semihadronic final state. We find our analysis particularly sensitive to a CP-even or CP-odd scalar resonance, while, for tensorial and vectorial resonances, discriminative features are diminished in the boosted kinematical regime.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, published versio

Getting Stuck: Using Monosignatures to Test Highly Ionizing Particles

In this paper we argue that monojet and monophoton searches can be a sensitive test of very highly ionizing particles such as particles with charges $\gtrsim 150e$ and more generally particles that do not reach the outer parts of the detector. 8 TeV monojet data from the CMS experiment excludes such objects with masses in the range $\lesssim 650~{\text{GeV}}$ and charges $\gtrsim 100e$. This nicely complements searches for highly ionizing objects at ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. Expected improvements in these channels will extend the sensitivity range to $m\lesssim 750~{\text{GeV}}$. This search strategy can directly be generalized to other particles that strongly interact with the detector material, such as e.g. magnetic monopoles.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, version published in PL

Modified Higgs Sectors and NLO Associated Production

Many beyond the Standard Model (BSM) scenarios involve Higgs couplings to additional electroweak fields. It is well established that these new fields may modify Higgs gamma-gamma and gamma-Z decays at one-loop. However, one unexplored aspect of such scenarios is that by electroweak symmetry one should also expect modifications to the Higgs Z-Z coupling at one-loop and, more generally, modifications to Higgs production and decay channels beyond tree-level. In this paper we investigate the full BSM modified electroweak corrections to associated Higgs production at both the LHC and a future lepton collider in two simple SM extensions. From both inclusive and differential NLO associated production cross sections we find BSM-NLO corrections can be as large as O(>10%) when compared to the SM expectation, consistent with other precision electroweak measurements, even in scenarios where modifications to the Higgs diphoton rate are not significant. At the LHC such corrections are comparable to the involved QCD uncertainties. At a lepton collider the Higgs associated production cross section can be measured to high accuracy (O(1%) independent of uncertainties in total width and other couplings), and such a deviation could be easily observed even if the new states remain beyond kinematic reach. This should be compared to the expected accuracy for a model-independent determination of the Higgs diphoton coupling at a lepton collider, which is O(15%). This work demonstrates that precision measurements of the Higgs associated production cross section constitute a powerful probe of modified Higgs sectors and will be valuable for indirectly exploring BSM scenarios.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figure

Top quark electroweak couplings at future lepton colliders

We perform a comparative study of the reach of future $e^+e^-$ collider options for the scale of non-resonant new physics effects in the top quark sector, phrased in the language of higher-dimensional operators. Our focus is on the electroweak top quark pair production process $e^+e^- \to Z^*/\gamma \to t\bar t$, and we study benchmark scenarios at the ILC and CLIC. We find that both are able to constrain mass scales up to the few TeV range in the most sensitive cases, improving by orders of magnitude on the forecasted capabilities of the LHC. We discuss the role played by observables such as forward-backward asymmetries, and making use of different beam polarisation settings, and highlight the possibility of lifting a degeneracy in the allowed parameter space by combining top observables with precision $Z$-pole measurements from LEP1.Comment: v1: 11 pages, 11 figures. v2: References added, Fig. 11 updated. Matches version published in EPJ

Constraining new resonant physics with top spin polarisation information

We provide a comprehensive analysis of the power of including top quark-polarisation information to kinematically challenging $t\bar t$ resonance searches, for which ATLAS and CMS start losing sensitivity. Following the general modeling and analysis strategies pursued by the experiments, we analyse the semi-leptonic and the di-lepton $t\bar t$ channels and show that including polarisation information can lead to large improvements in the limit setting procedures with large data sets. This will allow us to set limits for parameter choices where sensitivity from $m(t\bar t)$ is not sufficient. This highlights the importance of spin observables as part of a more comprehensive set of observables to gain sensitivity to BSM resonance searches.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figure

Precise predictions for (non-standard) W+photon+jet production

We report on a detailed investigation of the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to $W\gamma$+jet production at the Tevatron and the LHC using a fully-flexible parton-level Monte Carlo program. We include the full leptonic decay of the $W$, taking into account all off-shell and finite width effects, as well as non-standard $WW\gamma$ couplings. We find particularly sizable corrections for the currently allowed parameter range of anomalous couplings imposed by LEP data. In total the NLO differential distributions reveal a substantial phase space dependence of the corrections, leaving considerable sensitivity to anomalous couplings beyond scale uncertainty at large momentum transfers in the anomalous vertex.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables, published versio

Ditau jets in Higgs searches

Understanding and identifying ditau jets -- jets consisting of pairs of tau particles, can be of crucial importance and may even turn out to be a necessity if the Higgs boson decays dominantly to new light scalars which, on the other hand, decay to tau pairs. As often seen in various models of BSM such as in the NMSSM, Higgs portals etc., the lightness of these new states ensures their large transverse momenta and, as a consequence, the collinearity of their decay products. We show that the non-standard signatures of these objects, which can easily be missed by standard analysis techniques, can be superbly exploited in an analysis based on subjet observables. When combined with additional selection strategies, this analysis can even facilitate an early discovery of the Higgs boson. To be specific, a light Higgs can be found with $S/\sqrt{B} \gtrsim 5$ from $\mathcal {L} \simeq 12 fb^{-1}$ of data. We combine all these observables into a single discriminating likelihood that can be employed toward the construction of a realistic and standalone ditau tagger.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures. References added, typos corrected, published versio

A UV Complete Compositeness Scenario: LHC Constraints Meet The Lattice

We investigate a recently proposed UV-complete composite Higgs scenario in the light of the first LHC runs. The model is based on a $SU(4)$ gauge group with global flavour symmetry breaking $SU(5) \to SO(5)$, giving rise to pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons in addition to the Higgs doublet. This includes a real and a complex electroweak triplet with exotic electric charges. Including these, as well as constraints on other exotic states, we show that LHC measurements are not yet sensitive enough to significantly constrain the model's low energy constants. The Higgs potential is described by two parameters which are on the one hand constrained by the LHC measurement of the Higgs mass and Higgs decay channels and on the other hand can be computed from correlation functions in the UV-complete theory. Hence to exclude the model at least one constant needs to be determined and to validate the Higgs potential both constants need to be reproduced by the UV-theory. Due to its UV-formulation, a certain number of low energy constants can be computed from first principle numerical simulations of the theory formulated on a lattice, which can help in establishing the validity of this model. We assess the potential impact of lattice calculations for phenomenological studies, as a preliminary step towards Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Giving top quark effective operators a boost

We investigate the prospects to systematically improve generic effective field theory-based searches for new physics in the top sector during LHC run 2 as well as the high luminosity phase. In particular, we assess the benefits of high momentum transfer final states on top EFT-fit as a function of systematic uncertainties in comparison with sensitivity expected from fully-resolved analyses focusing on $t\bar t$ production. We find that constraints are typically driven by fully-resolved selections, while boosted top quarks can serve to break degeneracies in the global fit. This demystifies and clarifies the importance of high momentum transfer final states for global fits to new interactions in the top sector from direct measurements.Comment: Published versio