Concurrent Exploration of Axion-Like Particle Interactions with Gauge Bosons at the LHC

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chenarani, Shirin, Najafabadi, Mojtaba Mohammadi
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866916786699501568
author Chenarani, Shirin
Najafabadi, Mojtaba Mohammadi
author_facet Chenarani, Shirin
Najafabadi, Mojtaba Mohammadi
contents Axion-like particles (ALPs) are pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons associated with spontaneously broken global symmetries incorporated in the Standard Model (SM) Lagrangian in many models beyond the SM. The existence of a light ALP is plausible due to the long-standing problems that the SM has not been able to address, such as the dark matter (DM) problem and the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry. There are many proposals in recent decades considering the ALP as a solution to some of these shortcomings. Motivated by such potential, we search for ALPs with a mass of 1 MeV at the LHC in a model-independent fashion. We explore two complementary production modes: ALP production in association with a pair of electroweak gauge bosons ($ZZ$ or $WW$) and ALP production in association with a single gauge boson ($W$ or $Z$) plus jets. For the $VV+a$ final state, signal and dominant SM backgrounds are generated, and a realistic detector response simulation is performed. A multivariate analysis is employed to discriminate the $VV+a$ signal from background processes, and the expected $95\%$ confidence level (CL) exclusion limits in two-dimensional parameter spaces involving the ALP couplings are subsequently derived. The $V$+jets channel is interpreted using LHC measurements in regimes where the ALP escapes detection, appearing as missing energy. The two analyses are complementary: both the $VV+a$ and the $V$+jets channels probe simultaneously the ALP couplings to gluons and to electroweak gauge bosons. While the $VV+a$ channel offers clean multi-lepton final states and direct reconstruction of the $ZZ$ or $WW$ system, the $V$+jets channel benefits from larger production cross sections, enabling stronger constraints in certain regions of the parameter space.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_21305
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Concurrent Exploration of Axion-Like Particle Interactions with Gauge Bosons at the LHC
Chenarani, Shirin
Najafabadi, Mojtaba Mohammadi
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Axion-like particles (ALPs) are pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons associated with spontaneously broken global symmetries incorporated in the Standard Model (SM) Lagrangian in many models beyond the SM. The existence of a light ALP is plausible due to the long-standing problems that the SM has not been able to address, such as the dark matter (DM) problem and the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry. There are many proposals in recent decades considering the ALP as a solution to some of these shortcomings. Motivated by such potential, we search for ALPs with a mass of 1 MeV at the LHC in a model-independent fashion. We explore two complementary production modes: ALP production in association with a pair of electroweak gauge bosons ($ZZ$ or $WW$) and ALP production in association with a single gauge boson ($W$ or $Z$) plus jets. For the $VV+a$ final state, signal and dominant SM backgrounds are generated, and a realistic detector response simulation is performed. A multivariate analysis is employed to discriminate the $VV+a$ signal from background processes, and the expected $95\%$ confidence level (CL) exclusion limits in two-dimensional parameter spaces involving the ALP couplings are subsequently derived. The $V$+jets channel is interpreted using LHC measurements in regimes where the ALP escapes detection, appearing as missing energy. The two analyses are complementary: both the $VV+a$ and the $V$+jets channels probe simultaneously the ALP couplings to gluons and to electroweak gauge bosons. While the $VV+a$ channel offers clean multi-lepton final states and direct reconstruction of the $ZZ$ or $WW$ system, the $V$+jets channel benefits from larger production cross sections, enabling stronger constraints in certain regions of the parameter space.
title Concurrent Exploration of Axion-Like Particle Interactions with Gauge Bosons at the LHC
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21305