Search

We present a review of the conceptual basis, current knowledge, and recent progress regarding global analysis of nuclear parton distribution functions (PDFs). After introducing the theoretical foundations and methodological approaches for the extraction of nuclear PDFs from experimental data, we discuss how different measurements in fixed-target and collider experiments provide increasingly precise constraints on various aspects of nuclear PDFs, including shadowing, antishadowing, the EMC effect, Fermi motion, flavor separation, deuteron binding, and target-mass and other higher-twist effects. Particular emphasis is given to measurements carried out in proton–lead collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, which have revolutionized the global analysis during the past decade. These measurements include electroweak boson, jet, light hadron, and heavy flavor observables. Finally, we outline the expected impact of the future Electron Ion Collider and discuss the role and interplay of nuclear PDFs with other branches of nuclear, particle, and astroparticle physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To maximise the information obtained from various independent new physics searches conducted at the LHC, it is imperative to consider the combination of multiple analyses. To showcase the exclusion power gained by combining signal regions from different searches, we consider a simplified scenario inspired by supersymmetry, with all particles but one squark flavour and a bino-like neutralino decoupled. The corresponding signal therefore comprises strong squark pair production, associated squark-neutralino production, as well as weak neutralino pair production. We find that considering the associated and strong production mechanisms together significantly impacts mass limits, while contributions from the weak production are insignificant in the context of current exclusion limits. In addition, we demonstrate that the combination of uncorrelated signal regions as assessed from the recent TACO approach substantially pushes exclusion limits towards higher masses, relative to the bounds derived from the most sensitive individual analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of virtual photons is a very sensitive probe of the properties of the quark-gluon plasma. As they are experimentally detected by lepton pairs, they suffer from a large background arising from hadron decays. Light-flavour hadrons dominate at low invariant masses below mee ~ 0.5 GeV and heavy flavours above. These contributions must therefore also be taken into account in experimental analyses at the LHC. In this paper, we calculate the direct contribution from virtual photons produced in the Drell-Yan process with an additional jet in POWHEG and find that it is significant at low invariant masses. We also simulate the background contributions from c c ¯ and b b ¯ production with POWHEG and quantify the theoretical uncertainties due to variations of the perturbative scales and parton distribution functions. We find larger relative and absolute uncertainties for the lighter c quarks than for heavier b quarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present DM@NLO, a Fortran 77 based program with a C++ interface dedicated to precision calculations of dark matter (DM) (co)annihilation cross-sections and elastic dark matter-nucleon scattering amplitudes in the minimal supersymmetric (SUSY) Standard Model (MSSM) at next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbative (SUSY) QCD. If the annihilating initial particles carry an electric or colour charge, the Sommerfeld enhanced cross section is included as well and can be matched to the NLO cross section. We review these calculations including technical details relevant for using the code. We illustrate their impact by applying DM@NLO to an example scenario in the constrained MSSM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of exclusive processes in ultraperipheral collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has allowed us to test several aspects of the Standard Model and to search for New Physics. In this letter, we investigate the possibility of using these processes to improve our understanding of the quarkonium production mechanism through the study of the exclusive J / Ψ plus jet associate production in ultraperipheral PbPb collisions. We estimate the transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions considering that the γ γ → J / Ψ + X (X = γ , g) subprocess is described by the Non-Relativistic QCD (NRQCD) formalism and present predictions for the rapidity ranges covered by central and forward detectors. The experimental separation of these events is discussed and the results indicate that a future experimental analysis is, in principle, feasible in future runs of the LHC and the Future Circular Collider (FCC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the greater experimental precision expected from the currently ongoing LHC Run 3, equally accurate theoretical predictions are essential. We update the documentation of the Resummino package, a program dedicated to precision cross section calculations for the production of a pair of sleptons, electroweakinos, and leptons in the presence of extra gauge bosons, and for the production of an associated electroweakino-squark or electroweakino-gluino pair. We detail different additions that have been released since the initial version of the program a decade ago, and then use the code to investigate the impact of threshold resummation corrections at the next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy. As an illustration of the code we consider the production of pairs of electroweakinos and sleptons at the LHC for centre-of-mass energies ranging up to 13.6 TeV and in simplified model scenarios. We find slightly increased total cross section values, accompanied by a significant decrease of the associated theoretical uncertainties. Furthermore, we explore the dependence of the results on the squark masses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hidden sectors are ubiquitous in supergravity theories, in strings and in branes. Well motivated models such as the Stueckelberg hidden sector model could provide a candidate for dark matter. In such models, the hidden sector communicates with the visible sector via the exchange of a dark photon (dark Z′) while dark matter is constituted of Dirac fermions in the hidden sector. Using data from collider searches and precision measurements of SM processes as well as the most recent limits from dark matter direct and indirect detection experiments, we perform a comprehensive scan over a wide range of the Z′ mass and set exclusion bounds on the parameter space from sub-GeV to several TeV. We then discuss the discovery potential of an O (TeV) scale Z′ at HL-LHC and the ability of future forward detectors to probe very weakly interacting sub-GeV Z′ bosons. Our analysis shows that the parameter space in which a Z′ can decay to hidden sector dark matter is severely constrained whereas limits become much weaker for a Z′ with no dark decays. The analysis also favors a self-thermalized dark sector which is necessary to satisfy the dark matter relic density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hidden sectors are ubiquitous in supergravity theories, in strings and in branes. Well motivated models such as the Stueckelberg hidden sector model could provide a candidate for dark matter. In such models, the hidden sector communicates with the visible sector via the exchange of a dark photon (dark Z′) while dark matter is constituted of Dirac fermions in the hidden sector. Using data from collider searches and precision measurements of SM processes as well as the most recent limits from dark matter direct and indirect detection experiments, we perform a comprehensive scan over a wide range of the Z′ mass and set exclusion bounds on the parameter space from sub-GeV to several TeV. We then discuss the discovery potential of an O (TeV) scale Z′ at HL-LHC and the ability of future forward detectors to probe very weakly interacting sub-GeV Z′ bosons. Our analysis shows that the parameter space in which a Z′ can decay to hidden sector dark matter is severely constrained whereas limits become much weaker for a Z′ with no dark decays. The analysis also favors a self-thermalized dark sector which is necessary to satisfy the dark matter relic density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this white paper is to give a comprehensive overview of the rich field of forward physics. We discuss the occurrences of BFKL re-summation effects in special final states, such as Mueller-Navelet jets, jet-gap-jets, and heavy quarkonium production. It further addresses TMD factorization at low x and the manifestation of a semi-hard saturation scale in (generalized) TMD PDFs. More theoretical aspects of low-x physics, probes of the quark-gluon plasma, as well as the possibility to use photon-hadron collisions at the LHC to constrain hadronic structure at low x, and the resulting complementarity between LHC and the EIC are also presented. We also briefly discuss diffraction at colliders as well as the possibility to explore further the electroweak theory in central exclusive events using the LHC as a photon-photon collider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform a threshold resummation calculation for the associated production of squarks and electroweakinos at the LHC to the next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy. Analytical results for the process-dependent soft anomalous dimension and the hard matching coefficient are presented. The resummed results are matched to fixed-order predictions at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD, which are generalised to scenarios with non-universal squark masses and mixings. Numerically, the NLL contributions increase the total NLO cross section by 2% to 6% for squark masses ranging from 1 TeV to 3 TeV, respectively, and they reduce the dependence of the predictions on the factorisation and renormalisation scales from typically ±10% to below ±5%. Our NLO and NLO+NLL calculations have been implemented in the publicly available program Resummino. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Searches for dark matter suggest that it couples to ordinary matter only very weakly and possibly only through the Higgs or other scalar bosons. On the other hand, neutrinos might not couple to the Higgs boson directly, but only through a loop of dark matter particles, which would naturally explain the small neutrino masses. We demonstrate that current experimental constraints on such a "scotogenic" scenario allow to make the linear dependence of the lightest neutrino mass on the dark sector-Higgs coupling explicit, so that a measurement by the KATRIN experiment would directly determine its value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a particle physics model to explain the observed enhancement in the Xenon-1T data at an electron recoil energy of 2.5 keV. The model is based on a U(1) extension of the Standard Model where the dark sector consists of two essentially mass degenerate Dirac fermions in the sub-GeV region with a small mass splitting interacting with a dark photon. The dark photon is unstable and decays before the big bang nucleosynthesis, which leads to the dark matter constituted of two essentially mass degenerate Dirac fermions. The Xenon-1T excess is computed via the inelastic exothermic scattering of the heavier dark fermion from a bound electron in xenon to the lighter dark fermion producing the observed excess events in the recoil electron energy. The model can be tested with further data from Xenon-1T and in future experiments such as SuperCDMS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We determine the discovery potential of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at 13 TeV center-of-mass energy for a heavy scalar resonance in the dilepton channel. In particular, we consider the singlet-like heavy mass eigenstate of a mixed two Higgs doublet and scalar singlet model in the U(1)B−L extension of the standard model. We find that, despite the small coupling of the singlet scalar with the doublets, this heavy scalar can be discovered with 5σ at the LHC with integrated luminosities of ∼300 to 1400 fb−1 in the mass range between 500 GeV and 1 TeV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstrac: We present a first, detailed study of diffractive dijet photoproduction at the recently approved electron-ion collider (EIC) at BNL. Apart from establishing the kinematic reaches for various beam types, energies and kinematic cuts, we make precise predictions at next-to-leading order (NLO) of QCD in the most important kinematic variables. We show that the EIC will provide new and more precise information on the diffractive parton density functions (PDFs) in the pomeron than previously obtained at HERA, illuminate the still disputed mechanism of global vs. only resolved-photon factorization breaking, and provide access to a completely new quantity, i.e. nuclear diffractive PDFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a calculation of slepton pair production at the LHC at next-to-next- to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy, matched to approximate next-to-next-to-leading order (aNNLO) QCD corrections. We collect the relevant analytical formulae, discuss the matching of logarithmically enhanced and fixed-order results and describe the transformation of parton densities and hadronic cross sections to and from Mellin space. Numerically, we find a moderate increase of invariant-mass distributions and total cross sections with respect to our previous results at next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy matched to next-to-leading order (NLO), and more importantly a further significant reduction of the factorisation and renormalisation scale dependence that stabilises our predictions to the permil level. The dependence on other supersymmetric parameters like squark and gluino masses and sbottom mixing that enter only at NLO is found to be weak, i.e. less than two percent, as expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baryon and lepton numbers being accidental global symmetries of the Standard Model (SM), it is natural to promote them to local symmetries. However, to preserve anomaly-freedom, only combinations of B-L are viable. In this spirit, we investigate possible dark matter realizations in the context of the $$U(1)_\mathrm{B{-}L}$$ model: (i) Dirac fermion with unbroken B-L; (ii) Dirac fermion with broken B-L; (iii) scalar dark matter; (iv) two-component dark matter. We compute the relic abundance, direct and indirect detection observables and confront them with recent results from Planck, LUX-2016, and Fermi-LAT and prospects from XENON1T. In addition to the well-known LEP bound $$M_{Z^{\prime }}/g_\mathrm{BL} \gtrsim 7$$ TeV, we include often ignored LHC bounds using 13 TeV dilepton (dimuon + dielectron) data at next-to-leading order plus next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We show that, for gauge couplings smaller than 0.4, the LHC gives rise to the strongest collider limit. In particular, we find $$M_{Z^{\prime }}/g_\mathrm{BL} > 8.7$$ TeV for $$g_\mathrm{BL}=0.3$$ . We conclude that the NLO+NLL corrections improve the dilepton bounds on the $$Z^{\prime }$$ mass and that both dark matter candidates are only viable in the $$Z^{\prime }$$ resonance region, with the parameter space for scalar dark matter being fully probed by XENON1T. Lastly, we show that one can successfully have a minimal two-component dark matter model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermal photons radiated in heavy-ion collisions represent an important signal for a recently discovered new state of matter, the deconfined quark-gluon plasma. However, a clean identification of this signal requires precise knowledge of the prompt photons produced simultaneously in hard collisions of quarks and gluons, mostly through their fragmentation. In this paper, we demonstrate that PHENIX data on photons produced in proton-proton collisions with low transverse momenta allow one to extract new information on this fragmentation process. While existing data do not yet convincingly favor one parameterization (BFG II) over the two other frequently used photon fragmentation functions (BFG I and GRV NLO), the data sets recorded by PHENIX and STAR at BNL RHIC in 2013 with tenfold higher statistics should allow for such an analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the shift in experimental attention towards electroweak supersymmetric particle production at the CERN LHC, we update in this paper our precision predictions at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD matched to resummation at the next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy for direct slepton pair production in proton-proton collisions. Simplified models, now commonly adopted by the experimental collaborations for selectrons and smuons as well as mixing staus, are used as benchmarks for total cross sections at achieved and future center-of-mass energies. They are presented together with the corresponding scale and parton density uncertainties in graphical and tabular form for future reference. Using modern Monte Carlo techniques, we also reanalyze recent ATLAS and CMS slepton searches in light of our precision cross sections and for various assumptions on the decomposition of the sleptons and their neutralino decay products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the Resummino package, a C++ and Fortran program dedicated to precision calculations in the framework of gaugino and slepton pair production at hadron colliders. This code allows to calculate transverse-momentum and invariant-mass distributions as well as total cross sections by combining the next-to-leading order predictions obtained by means of perturbative QCD with the resummation of the large logarithmic contributions arising in the small transverse-momentum region and close to the production threshold. The results computed in this way benefit from reduced theoretical uncertainties, compared to a pure next-to-leading order approach as currently employed in the experimental analyses searching for sleptons and gauginos at hadron colliders. This is illustrated by using Resummino in the context of a typical supersymmetric benchmark point dedicated to superpartner searches at the Large Hadron Collider. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by hints for a light Standard Model-like Higgs boson and a shift in experimental attention towards electroweak supersymmetry particle production at the CERN LHC, we update in this paper our precision predictions at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD matched to resummation at the next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy for direct gaugino pair production in proton-proton collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. Tables of total cross sections are presented together with the corresponding scale and parton density uncertainties for benchmark points adopted recently by the experimental collaborations, and figures are presented for up-to-date model lines attached to them. Since the experimental analyses are currently obtained with parton showers matched to multi-parton matrix elements, we also analyze the precision of this procedure by comparing invariant-mass and transverse-momentum distributions obtained in this way to those obtained with threshold and transverse-momentum resummation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The associated production of charged Higgs bosons and top quarks at hadron colliders is an important discovery channel to establish the existence of a non-minimal Higgs sector. Here, we present details of a next-to-leading order (NLO) calculation of this process using the Catani-Seymour dipole formalism and describe its implementation in POWHEG, which allows to match NLO calculations to parton showers. Numerical predictions are presented using the PYTHIA parton shower and are compared to those obtained previously at fixed order, to a leading order calculation matched to the PYTHIA parton shower, and to a different NLO calculation matched to the HERWIG parton shower with MC@NLO. We also present numerical predictions and theoretical uncertainties for various Two Higgs Doublet Models at the Tevatron and LHC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now that new publications of H1 data for the diffractive photoproduction of dijets, which overlap with the earlier published H1 data and the recently published data of the ZEUS collaboration, have appeared, we have recalculated the cross sections for this process in next-to-leading order (NLO) of perturbative QCD to see whether they can be interpreted consistently. The results of these calculations are compared to the data of both collaborations. We find that the NLO cross sections disagree with the data, showing that factorization breaking occurs at that order. If direct and resolved contributions are both suppressed by the same amount, the global suppression factor depends on the transverse-energy cut. However, by suppressing only the resolved contribution, also reasonably good agreement with all the data is found with a suppression factor independent of the transverse-energy cut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little Higgs models are often endowed with a T-parity in order to satisfy electroweak precision tests and give at the same time a stable particle which is a candidate for cold dark matter. This type of models predicts a set of new T-odd fermions in addition to the heavy gauge bosons of the Little Higgs models, which may show interesting signatures at colliders. In this paper, we study the signatures of strong and electroweak pair production of the first two generations of T-odd quarks at the LHC. We focus on the dileptonic signatures (a) pp → ℓ ℓ jj[InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] (opposite-sign dileptons) and (b) pp → ℓ ℓ jj[InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] (same-sign dileptons). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the final analyses of the H1 and ZEUS collaborations for the diffractive photoproduction of dijets have appeared, we have recalculated these cross sections in next-to-leading order (NLO) of perturbative QCD to see whether they can be interpreted consistently. The results of these calculations are compared to the data of both collaborations. We find that at NLO the cross sections disagree with the data, showing that factorization breaking occurs at this order. If direct and resolved contributions are both suppressed by the same amount, the global suppression factor depends on the transverse-energy cut and is 0.42 for the H1 and 0.71 for the ZEUS analysis. However, by suppressing only the resolved contribution by a factor of approximately three, also reasonably good agreement with all the data is found. The size of the factorization breaking effects for resolved photons agrees with absorptive-model predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Feynman diagram generator FeynArts and the computer algebra program FormCalc allow for an automatic computation of 2→2 and 2→3 scattering processes in High Energy Physics. We have extended this package by four new kinematical routines and adapted one existing routine in order to accomodate also two- and three-body decays of massive particles. This makes it possible to compute automatically two- and three-body particle decay widths and decay energy distributions as well as resonant particle production within the Standard Model and the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model at the tree- and loop-level. The use of the program is illustrated with three standard examples: [formula], [formula], and [formula]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a detailed study of a combined singlet-doublet scalar and singlet-doublet fermion model for dark matter. These models have only been studied separately in the past. We show that their combination allows for the radiative generation of neutrino masses, but that it also implies the existence of lepton-flavour violating (LFV) processes. We first analyse the dark matter, neutrino mass and LFV aspects separately. We then perform two random scans for scalar dark matter imposing Higgs mass, relic density and neutrino mass constraints, one over the full parameter space, the other over regions where scalar-fermion coannihilations become important. In the first case, a large part of the new parameter space is excluded by LFV, and the remaining models will be probed by XENONnT. In the second case, direct detection cross sections are generally too small, but a substantial part of the viable models will be tested by future LFV experiments. Possible constraints from the LHC are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present simplified MSSM models for light neutralinos and charginos with realistic mass spectra and realistic gaugino-higgsino mixing, that can be used in experimental searches at the LHC. The formerly used naive approach of defining mass spectra and mixing matrix elements manually and independently of each other does not yield genuine MSSM benchmarks. We suggest the use of less simplified, but realistic MSSM models, whose mass spectra and mixing matrix elements are the result of a proper matrix diagonalisation. We propose a novel strategy targeting the design of such benchmark scenarios, accounting for user-defined constraints in terms of masses and particle mixing. We apply it to the higgsino case and implement a scan in the four relevant underlying parameters {μ,tanβ,M1,M2} for a given set of light neutralino and chargino masses. We define a measure for the quality of the obtained benchmarks, that also includes criteria to assess the higgsino content of the resulting charginos and neutralinos. We finally discuss the distribution of the resulting models in the MSSM parameter space as well as their implications for supersymmetric dark matter phenomenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a simple extension of the Standard Model that can account for the dark matter and explain the existence of neutrino masses. The model includes a vector-like doublet of SU(2), a singlet fermion, and two scalar singlets, all of them odd under a new Z2 symmetry. Neutrino masses are generated radiatively by one-loop processes involving the new fields, while the dark matter candidate is the lightest neutral particle among them. We focus specifically on the case where the dark matter particle is one of the scalars and its relic density is determined by its Yukawa interactions. The phenomenology of this setup, including neutrino masses, dark matter and lepton flavor violation, is analyzed in some detail. We find that the dark matter mass must be below 600 GeV to satisfy the relic density constraint. Lepton flavor violating processes are shown to provide the most promising way to test this scenario. Future μ→3e and μ-e conversion experiments, in particular, have the potential to probe the entire viable parameter space of this model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]