Exploring alternative symmetry breaking mechanisms at the LHC with 7, 8 and 10 TeV total energy

In view of the annnouncement that in 2012 the LHC will run at 8 TeV, we study the possibility of detecting signals of alternative mechanisms of ElectroWeak Symmetry Breaking, described phenomenologically by unitarized models, at energies lower than 14 TeV. A complete calculation with six fermions in the final state is performed using the PHANTOM event generator. Our results indicate that at 8 TeV some of the scenarios with TeV scale resonances are likely to be identified while models with no resonances or with very heavy ones will be inaccessible, unless the available luminosity will be much higher than expected

CP Violation and Family Mixing in the Effective Electroweak Lagrangian

We construct the most general effective Lagrangian of the matter sector of the Standard Model, including mixing and CP violating terms. The Lagrangian contains the effective operators that give the leading contribution in theories where the physics beyond the Standard Model shows at a scale $\Lambda >>M_{W}$. We perform the diagonalization and passage to the physical basis in full generality. We determine the contribution to the different observables and discuss the possible new sources of CP violation, the idea being to be able to gain some knowledge about new physics beyond the Standard Model from general considerations, without having to compute model by model. The values of the coefficients of the effective Lagrangian in some theories, including the Standard Model, are presented and we try to draw some general conclusions about the general pattern exhibited by physics beyond the Standard Model in what concerns CP violation. In the process we have had to deal with two theoretical problems which are very interesting in their own: the renormalization of the CKM matrix elements and the wave function renormalization in the on-shell scheme when mixing is present.Comment: A misplaced sentence was correcte

Evidence for Bosonic Electroweak Corrections in the Standard Model

We present strong indirect evidence for the contribution of bosonic electroweak corrections in the Standard Model. Although important conceptually, these corrections give subleading contributions in current high energy experiments, and it was previously thought that they are difficult to detect. We also discuss the separate contribution of the Higgs boson.Comment: 9 pages (LaTeX + 3 PS figures, needs psfig

Bosonic Quartic Couplings at LHC

We analyze the potential of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to study anomalous quartic vector-boson interactions Z Z gamma gamma, Z Z Z gamma, W+ W- gamma gamma, and W+ W- Z gamma through the weak boson fusion processes q q -> q q gamma gamma and q q -> q q gamma Z(-> l+ l-) with l = electron or muon. After a careful study of the backgrounds and how to extract them from the data, we show that the process p p -> j j gamma l+ l- is potentially the most sensitive to deviations from the Standard Model, improving the sensitivity to anomalous couplings by up to a factor 10^4 (10^2) with respect to the present direct (indirect) limits.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, revised versio

The LEBT Chopper for the Spiral 2 Project

International audienceThe Spiral 2 driver uses a slow chopper situated in the common section of the low energy beam transport line to change the beam intensity, to cut off the beam in case of critical loss and to avoid hitting the wheel structure of rotating targets. The device has to work up to 10 kV, 1 kHz repetition frequency rate and its design is based on standard power circuits, custom alarm board and vacuum feed-through. The paper summarizes the design principles and describes the test results of the final device which has been installed on the beam line test bench

Measurements of the First RF Prototype of the SPIRAL2 Single Bunch Selector

WEPD062International audienceThe single bunch selector of the Spiral2 driver uses 100 ­ travelling wave electrodes driven by fast pulse generators. A 2.5 kV, 1 kW feed-through and a vacuum chamber housing the water cooled electrodes have been designed and built. The paper reviews the whole design and reports the results of first RF and power measurements

Slow chopper prototype for the SPIRAL 2PP project

A preliminary prototype of the slow chopper [1] for the Spiral 2 Preparatory Phase project [2] has been designed, developed and tested at INFN-LNS. The final version of the slow chopper will be placed along the beam line common to protons, deuterons and A/Q = 3 ions. This activity report shows the study, the hardware and the measurement results of the chopper prototype

Effective Theory of a Dynamically Broken Electroweak Standard Model at NLO

We consider the Standard Model as an effective theory at the weak scale $v$ of a generic new strong interaction that dynamically breaks electroweak symmetry at the energy scale $\Lambda\sim$ (few) TeV. Assuming only the minimal field content with the Standard Model fermions and gauge bosons, but without a light Higgs particle, we construct the complete Lagrangian through next-to-leading order, that is, including terms of order $v^2/\Lambda^2$. The systematics behind this expansion is clarified. Although similar to chiral perturbation theory, it is not governed by the dimension of operators alone, but depends in an essential way on the loop expansion. Power-counting formulas are derived that indicate the classes of operators required at the next-to-leading order. The complete set of operators at leading and next-to-leading order is then listed, based on the restrictions implied by the Standard-Model gauge symmetries. We recover the well-known operators discussed in the literature in connection with the electroweak chiral Lagrangian and in similar contexts, but we collect a complete and systematic list of all terms through order $v^2/\Lambda^2$. This includes some operators not discussed in explicit terms before. We also show that a few of the previously considered operators can be eliminated via the equations of motion. As another important result we confirm the known list of dimension-6 operators in the Standard Model with an elementary Higgs doublet, essentially as a special case of our scenario.Comment: 35 pages, 1 figure; references adde

Measuring effective electroweak couplings in single top production at the LHC

We study the mechanism of single top production at the LHC in the framework of an effective electroweak Lagrangian, analyzing the sensitivity of different observables to the magnitude of the effective couplings that parametrize new physics beyond the Standard Model. The observables relevant to the distinction between left and right effective couplings involve in practice the measurement of the spin of the top and this can be achieved only indirectly by measuring the angular distribution of its decay products. We show that the presence of effective right-handed couplings implies that the top is not in a pure spin state. A unique spin basis is singled out which allows one to connect top decay products angular distribution with the polarized top differential cross section. We present a complete analytical expression of the differential polarized cross section of the relevant perturbative subprocess including general effective couplings. The mass of the bottom quark, which actually turns out to be more relevant than naively expected, is retained. Finally we analyze different aspects the total cross section relevant to the measurement of new physics through the effective couplings. The above analysis also applies to anti-top production in a straightforward way.Comment: 38 pages, 17 figure

Constraints on Quartic Vector-Boson Interactions from Z Physics

We obtain the constraints on possible anomalous quartic vector-boson vertices arising from the precision measurements at the $Z$ pole. In the framework of $SU(2)_L \otimes U(1)_Y$ chiral Lagrangians, we examine all effective operators of order $D=4$ that lead to four-gauge-boson interactions but do not induce anomalous trilinear vertices. We constrain the anomalous quartic interactions by evaluating their one-loop corrections to the $Z$ pole physics. Our analysis is performed in a generic $R_\xi$ gauge and it shows that only the operators that break the $SU(2)_C$ custodial symmetry get limits close to the theoretical expectations. Our results also indicate that these anomalous couplings are already out of reach of the Next Linear $e^+ e^-$ Collider, while the Large Hadron Collider could be able to further extend the bounds on some of these couplings.Comment: 16 pages, 1 Postscript figures, uses RevTex and eps.st