0000000000649860
AUTHOR
Stefan Alte
Effective field theory after a new-physics discovery
When a new heavy particle is discovered at the LHC or at a future high-energy collider, it will be interesting to study its decays into Standard Model particles using an effective field-theory framework. We point out that the proper effective theory can not be constructed as an expansion in local, higher-dimensional operators; rather, it must be based on non-local operators defined in soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). For the interesting case where the new resonance is a gauge-singlet spin-0 boson, which is the first member of a new sector governed by a mass scale $M$, we show how a consistent scale separation between $M$ and the electroweak scale $v$ is achieved up to next-to-next-to…
Consistent Searches for SMEFT Effects in Non-Resonant Dilepton Events
Employing the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, we perform a detailed reinterpretation of measurements of the Weinberg angle in dilepton production as a search for new-physics effects. We truncate our signal prediction at order $1/\Lambda^2$, where $\Lambda$ denotes the new-physics mass scale, and introduce a theory error to account for unknown contributions of order $1/\Lambda^4$. Two linear combinations of four-fermion operators with distinct angular behavior contribute to dilepton production with growing impact at high energies. We define suitable angular observables and derive bounds on those two linear combinations using data from the Tevatron and the LHC. We find…
Consistent searches for SMEFT effects in non-resonant dijet events
We investigate the bounds which can be placed on generic new-physics contributions to dijet production at the LHC using the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, deriving the first consistently-treated EFT bounds from non-resonant high-energy data. We recast an analysis searching for quark compositeness, equivalent to treating the SM with one higher-dimensional operator as a complete UV model. In order to reach consistent, model-independent EFT conclusions, it is necessary to truncate the EFT effects consistently at order $1/\Lambda^2$ and to include the possibility of multiple operators simultaneously contributing to the observables, neither of which has been done in prev…