2,908 research outputs found
Does the `Higgs' have Spin Zero?
The Higgs boson is predicted to have spin zero. The ATLAS and CMS experiments
have recently reported of an excess of events with mass ~ 125 GeV that has some
of the characteristics expected for a Higgs boson. We address the questions
whether there is already any evidence that this excess has spin zero, and how
this possibility could be confirmed in the near future. The excess observed in
the gamma gamma final state could not have spin one, leaving zero and two as
open possibilities. We calculate the angular distribution of gamma gamma pairs
from the decays of a spin-two boson produced in gluon-gluon collisions, showing
that is unique and distinct from the spin-zero case. We also calculate the
distributions for lepton pairs that would be produced in the W W* decays of a
spin-two boson, which are very different from those in Higgs decays, and note
that the kinematics of the event selection used to produce the excess observed
in the W W* final state have reduced efficiency for spin two.Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, Version accepted for publication in JHEP,
includes additional plots of dilepton mass distribution
Recent studies of top quark properties and decays at hadron colliders
The top quark is the heaviest known elementary particle. Observed for the
first time in 1995 at the Tevatron by the CDF and D0 experiments, it has become
object of several studies aimed at fully characterize its properties and
decays. Precise determinations of top quark characteristics verify the internal
consistency of the standard model and are sensitive to new physics phenomena.
With the advent of the large top quark production rates generated at the LHC,
top quark studies have reached unprecedented statistical precision. This review
summarizes the recent measurements of top quark properties and studies of its
decays performed at the LHC and Tevatron.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables, Presented at Flavor Physics and CP
Violation (FPCP 2012), Hefei, China, May 21-25, 201
Cross Section Ratios between different CM energies at the LHC: opportunities for precision measurements and BSM sensitivity
The staged increase of the LHC beam energy provides a new class of
interesting observables, namely ratios and double ratios of cross sections of
various hard processes. The large degree of correlation of theoretical
systematics in the cross section calculations at different energies leads to
highly precise predictions for such ratios. We present in this letter few
examples of such ratios, and discuss their possible implications, both in terms
of opportunities for precision measurements and in terms of sensitivity to
Beyond the Standard Model dynamics.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure
Search for supersymmetry in pp collisions at ?s = 8 TeV in events with a single lepton, large jet multiplicity, and multiple b jets
L
Study of LHC Searches for a Lepton and Many Jets
Searches for new physics in high-multiplicity events with little or no
missing energy are an important component of the LHC program, complementary to
analyses that rely on missing energy. We consider the potential reach of
searches for events with a lepton and six or more jets, and show they can
provide increased sensitivity to many supersymmetric and exotic models that
would not be detected through standard missing-energy analyses. Among these are
supersymmetric models with gauge mediation, R-parity violation, and light
hidden sectors. Moreover, ATLAS and CMS measurements suggest the primary
background in this channel is from t-tbar, rather than W+jets or QCD, which
reduces the complexity of background modeling necessary for such a search. We
also comment on related searches where the lepton is replaced with another
visible object, such as a Z boson.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures, 1 tabl
Bound-state/elementary-particle duality in the Higgs sector and the case for an excited 'Higgs' within the standard model
Though being weakly interacting, QED can support bound states. In principle,
this can be expected for the weak interactions in the Higgs sector as well. In
fact, it has been argued long ago that there should be a duality between bound
states and the elementary particles in this sector, at least in leading order
in an expansion in the Higgs condensate. Whether this remains true beyond the
leading order is investigated using lattice simulations, and support is found.
This provides a natural interpretation of peaks in cross sections as bound
states. Unambiguously, this would imply the existence of (possibly very broad)
resonances of Higgs and W and Z bound states within the standard model.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures v2: added appendix with technical details, some
minor improvement
Measurements of new physics in top quark decay at LHC
A summary of ATLAS and CMS results on searches for new physics in top quark decay is presented. Three analysis are reported: the ATLAS and CMS searches for flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC) in top-quark decays and the CMS search for baryon number violation (BNV) in top-quark decays. ATLAS and CMS provided exclusion limits (at 95% CL) on the FCNC decay t -> Zq, using respectively 2.1 fb(-1) and 5.0 fb(-1) of pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV collected in 2011. Upper limits on B(t -> Zq) are respectively 0.73% and 0.24%. CMS has also set an exclusion limit (at 95% CL) on the BNV decay t -> lbq using 5.0 fb(-1) of data. Upper limit on B(t -> lbq) is 0.67%
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