How to discover QCD Instantons at the LHC

The Standard Model of particle physics predicts the existence of quantum tunnelling processes across topological inequivalent vacua, known as Instantons. In the electroweak sector, instantons provide a source of baryon asymmetry within the Standard Model. In Quantum Chromodynamics they are linked to chiral symmetry breaking and confinement. The direct experimental observation of Instanton-induced processes would therefore be a breakthrough in modern particle physics. Recently, new calculations for QCD Instanton processes in proton-proton collisions became public, suggesting sizable cross sections as well as promising experimental signatures at the LHC. In this work, we study possible analysis strategies to discover QCD Instanton induced processes at the LHC and derive a first limit based on existing Minimum Bias data.Comment: Work prepared in the context of the CERN TH workshop "Topological Effects in the Standard Model: Instantons, Sphalerons and Beyond at LHC

Using Drell-Yan to probe the underlying event in Run II at Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF)

We study the behavior of charged particles produced in association with Drell-Yan lepton-pairs in the region of the Z-boson in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV. We use the direction of the Z-boson in each event to define 'toward', 'away', and 'transverse' regions. For Drell-Yan production (excluding the leptons) both the 'toward' and 'transverse' regions are very sensitive to the 'underlying event', which is defined as everything except the two hard scattered components. The data are corrected to the particle level and are then compared with several PYTHIA models (with multiple parton interactions) and HERWIG (without multiple parton interactions) at the particle level (i.e. generator level). The data are also compared with a previous analysis on the behavior of the 'underlying event' in high transverse momentum jet production. The goal is to produce data that can be used by the theorists to tune and improve the QCD Monte-Carlo models of the 'underlying event' that are used to simulate hadron-hadron collisions