Distinguishing between lepton number violating scalars at the LHC
Scalars with lepton number violating interactions decaying into lepton pairs, as those mediating the see-saw of type II, always include doubly-charged components. If these are observed at the LHC, their electroweak quantum numbers can be determined through their leptonic decays in pair and single production.
Direct Bounds on Heavy Top-Like Quarks With Standard and Exotic Decays
Heavy vector-like quarks with electric charge $Q=2/3$ (also called \textit{heavy tops}) appear naturally in many extensions of the Standard Model. Although these typically predict the existence of further particles below the TeV scale, direct searches for heavy tops have been performed assuming that they decay only into SM particles. The aim of this paper is to overcome this situation. We consider the most constraining experimental LHC searches for vector-like quarks, including analyses of the 36 fb$^{-1}$ of data collected in the latest run at 13 TeV of center of mass energy, as well as searches sensitive to heavy tops decaying into a new scalar, $S$. Combining all these, we derive bounds …
Search for New Phenomena in Final States with Two Leptons and One or No b -Tagged Jets at s=13 TeV Using the ATLAS Detector
A search for new phenomena is presented in final states with two leptons and one or no $b$-tagged jets. The event selection requires the two leptons to have opposite charge, the same flavor (electrons or muons), and a large invariant mass. The analysis is based on the full Run-2 proton-proton collision dataset recorded at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. No significant deviation from the expected background is observed in the data. A four-fermion contact interaction between two quarks ($b,s$) and two leptons ($ee$ or $\mu\mu$), inspired by the $B$-meson decay anomalies, is used as a…
LHC signals of radiatively-induced neutrino masses and implications for the Zee-Babu model
Contrary to the see-saw models, extended Higgs sectors leading to radiatively-induced neutrino masses do require the extra particles to be at the TeV scale. However, these new states have often exotic decays, to which experimental LHC searches performed so far, focused on scalars decaying into pairs of same-sign leptons, are not sensitive. In this paper we show that their experimental signatures can start to be tested with current LHC data if dedicated multi-region analyses correlating different observables are used. We also provide high-accuracy estimations of the complicated Standard Model backgrounds involved. For the case of the Zee-Babu model, we show that regions not yet constrained b…
Neutrino masses in the Standard Model effective field theory
We would like to thank Xiao-Dong Ma for help in understanding some of the computations in Ref. [27]. We would like to thank Guilherme Guedes, Maria Ramos, Jose Santiago, and Arcadi Santamaria for useful discussions. M. C. is supported by the Spanish MINECO under the Ramon y Cajal program and partially by the Ministry of Science and Innovation under Grant No. FPA201678220-C3-1/3-P (FEDER), Spanish State Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigacion) under Grant No. PID2019-106087 GB-C21/C22 (10.13039/501100011033) as well as by the Junta de Andalucia Grants No. FQM 101 and No. A-FQM-211-UGR18, and No. P18-FR-4314 (FEDER). A. T. is supported by the Generalitat Valenciana under Grant No. P…
Detecting gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions with LISA: an update
MC was funded by the Royal Society under the Newton International Fellowship program. GD would like to thank CNPq (Brazil) for financial support. MH was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (grant number ST/P000819/1), and the Academy of Finland (grant number 286769). SJH was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (grant number ST/P000819/1). The work of JK was supported by Department of Energy (DOE) grant DE-SC0019195 and NSF grant PHY-1719642. TK and GS are funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under Germany's Excellence Strategy - EXC 2121 \Quantum Universe" - 390833306. JMN is supported by Ramon y Cajal Fellowship contract RYC-2017-22986…
Discriminating between lepton number violating scalars using events with four and three charged leptons at the LHC
Many Standard Model extensions predict doubly-charged scalars; in particular, all models with resonances in charged lepton-pair channels with non-vanishing lepton number; if these are pair produced at the LHC, the observation of their decay into l(-/+)l(-/+)W(-/+)W(-/+) will be necessary in order to establish their lepton-number violating character, which is generally not straightforward. Nonetheless, the analysis of events containing four charged leptons (including scalar decays into one or two taus as well as into W bosons) makes it possible to determine whether the doubly-charged excitation belongs to a multiplet with weak isospin T = 0,1/2,1,3/2 or 2 (assuming there are no excitations w…
Two-particle azimuthal correlations in photonuclear ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV with ATLAS
We thank CERN for the very successful operation of the LHC, as well as the support staff from our institutions without whom ATLAS could not be operated efficiently. We acknowledge the support of ANPCyT, Argentina, YerPhI, Armenia, ARC, Australia, BMWFW and FWF, Austria, ANAS, Azerbaijan, SSTC, Belarus, CNPq and FAPESP, Brazil, NSERC, NRC, and CFI, Canada, CERN and ANID, Chile, CAS, MOST, and NSFC, China, COLCIENCIAS, Colombia, MSMT CR, MPO CR, and VSC CR, Czech Republic, DNRF and DNSRC, Denmark, IN2P3-CNRS and CEA-DRF/IRFU, France, SRNSFG, Georgia, BMBF, HGF, and MPG, Germany, GSRT, Greece, RGC and Hong Kong SAR, China, ISF and Benoziyo Center, Israel, INFN, Italy, MEXT and JSPS, Japan, CNR…
Probes of the Standard Model effective field theory extended with a right-handed neutrino
If neutrinos are Dirac particles and, as suggested by the so far null LHC results, any new physics lies at energies well above the electroweak scale, the Standard Model effective field theory has to be extended with operators involving the right-handed neutrinos. In this paper, we study this effective field theory and set constraints on the different dimension-six interactions. To that aim, we use LHC searches for associated production of light (and tau) leptons with missing energy, monojet searches, as well as pion and tau decays. Our bounds are generally above the TeV for order one couplings. One particular exception is given by operators involving top quarks. These provide new signals in…
Lepton number violation and scalar searches at the LHC
We review the SM extensions with scalar multiplets including doubly- charged components eventually observable as di-leptonic resonances at the LHC. Special emphasis is paid to the limits on LNV implied by doubly- charged scalar searches at the LHC, and to the characterization of the multiplet doubly-charged scalars belong to if they are observed to decay into same-sign charged lepton pairs.