CP-violating Supersymmetric Higgs at the Tevatron and LHC

We analyze the prospect for observing the intermediate neutral Higgs boson ($h_2$) in its decay to two lighter Higgs bosons ($h_1$) at the presently operating hadron colliders in the framework of the CP violating MSSM using the PYTHIA event generator. We consider the lepton+ 4-jets+ \met channel from associate $W h_2$ production, with W h_2 \ra W h_1 h_1 \ra \ell \nu_\ell b \bar b b\bar b. We require two, three or four tagged $b$-jets. We explicitly consider all relevant Standard Model backgrounds, treating $c$-jets separately from light flavor and gluon jets and allowing for mistagging. We find that it is very hard to observe this signature at the Tevatron, even with 20 fb$^{-1}$ of data, in the LEP--allowed region of parameter space due to the small signal efficiency, even though the background is manageable. At the LHC, a priori huge SM backgrounds can be suppressed by applying judiciously chosen kinematical selections. After all cuts, we are left with a signal cross section of around 0.5 fb, and a signal to background ratio between 1.2 and 2.9. According to our analysis this Higgs signal should be viable at the LHC in the vicinity of present LEP exclusion once 20 to 50 fb$^{-1}$ of data have been accumulated at $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figure

Weighing the universe with accelerators and detectors

Suppose the lightest superpartner (LSP) is observed at colliders, and WIMPs are detected in explicit experiments. We point out that one cannot immediately conclude that cold dark matter (CDM) of the universe has been observed, and we determine what measurements are necessary before such a conclusion is meaningful. We discuss the analogous situation for neutrinos and axions; in the axion case we have not found a way to conclude axions are the CDM even if axions are detected.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures; minor changes included and typos fixe

γγ\gamma \gamma Processes at High Energy pp Colliders

In this note we investigate the production of charged heavy particles via \gaga\ fusion at high energy pp colliders. We revise previous claims that the \gaga\ cross section is comparable to or larger than that for the corresponding Drell-Yan process at high energies. Indeed we find that the \gaga\ contribution to the total production cross section at pp is far below the Drell-Yan cross section. As far as the individual elastic, semi-elastic and inelastic contributions to the \gaga\ process are concerned we find that they are all of the same order of magnitude.Comment: REVTEX, 12 pages, two uuencoded figures appended at the end of the fil

SUSY darkmatter at the LHC - 7 TeV

We have analysed the early LHC signatures of the minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) model. Our emphasis is on the 7 - $TeV$ run corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $\sim 1.0 ~fb^{-1}$ although we have also discussed briefly the prospects at LHC-10 $TeV$. We focus on the parameter space yielding relatively light squark and gluinos consistent with the darkmatter relic density data and the LEP bounds on the lightest Higgs scalar mass. This parameter space is only allowed for non-vanishing trilinear soft breaking term $A_0$. A significant region of the parameter space with large to moderate negative values of $A_0$ consistent with the stability of the scalar potential and relic density production via neutralino annihilation and/or neutralino - stau coannihilation yields observable signal via the jets + missing transverse energy channel. The one lepton + jets + missing energy signal is also viable over a smaller but non-trivial parameter space. The ratio of the size of the two signals - free from theoretical uncertainties - may distinguish between different relic density generating mechanisms. With efficient $\tau$-tagging facilities at 7 $TeV$ the discriminating power may increase significantly. We also comment on other dark matter relic density allowed mSUGRA scenarios and variants there of in the context of LHC-7 $TeV$.Comment: Brief comments on signals at 7 TeV in the Higgs funnel region of mSUGRA, models with non universal scalar and gaugino masses have been added. Accepted for publication in PR

Direct and Indirect Detection of Neutralino Dark Matter and Collider Signatures in an SO(10)SO(10) Model with Two Intermediate Scales

We investigate the detectability of neutralino Dark Matter via direct and indirect searches as well as collider signatures of an $SO(10)$ model with two intermediate scales. We compare the direct Dark Matter detection cross section and the muon flux due to neutralino annihilation in the Sun that we obtain in this model with mSUGRA predictions and with the sensitivity of current and future experiments. In both cases, we find that the detectability improves as the model deviates more from mSUGRA. In order to study collider signatures, we choose two benchmark points that represent the main phenomenological features of the model: a lower value of $|\mu|$ and reduced third generation sfermion masses due to extra Yukawa coupling contributions in the Renormalization Group Equations, and increased first and second generation slepton masses due to new gaugino loop contributions. We show that measurements at the LHC can distinguish this model from mSUGRA in both cases, by counting events containing leptonically decaying $Z^0$ bosons, heavy neutral Higgs bosons, or like--sign lepton pairs.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figure

Modification of the Equivalent Photon Approximation for Resolved Photon Processes

We propose a modification of the equivalent photon approximation (EPA) for processes which involve the parton content of the photon, to take into account the suppression of the photonic parton fluxes due to the virtuality of the photon. We present simple, physically motivated ans\"atze to model this suppression and show that even though the parton content of the electron no longer factorizes into an electron flux function and a photon structure function, it is still possible to express it as a single integral. We also show that for the TRISTAN experiments its effect can be numerically of the same size as that of the NLO corrections. Further, we discuss a possible measurement at HERA, which can provide an experimental handle on the effect we model through our ans\"atze.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX with equations.sty, 3 figures (not included); to appear in the Proceedings of "Photon95", Sheffield, April 1995. A complete compressed PS file, including figures, is available via anonymous ftp from ftp://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1995/madph-95-891.ps.