Search

Scattering amplitudes for the massless QCD process, $q\bar{q}\to q^\prime\bar{q}^\prime$, are calculated in the one-loop order in the Feynman-Diagram (FD) gauge, where gluons are quantized on the light cone with opposite direction of the three-momenta. We find non-decoupling of the Faddeev-Popov ghosts and non-conventional UV singularities in dimensional regularization. The known QCD amplitudes with asymptotic freedom are reproduced only after summing propagator and vertex corrections. By quantizing gluons in the Feynman gauge on the FD gauge background, we obtain the one-loop improved FD gauge amplitudes., Comment: 27 pages

We calculate helicity amplitudes for $e^-e^+\to W^-W^+$ analytically in the Feynman-diagram (FD) gauge. We show that, unlike in the unitary gauge, there is no energy growth of the individual Feynman amplitudes for the longitudinally polarized W bosons, and the contributions from the associated Goldstone bosons are manifest even without taking the high-energy limit. We also find that the physical distributions can be interpreted by the individual amplitudes in the FD gauge., Comment: 7 pages, 3 Tables, 6 figures; v2: version published in PRD

We develop a method to calculate helicity amplitudes of an arbitrary tree-level process in Feynman-Diagram (FD) gauge for an arbitrary gauge model with MadGraph5_aMC@NLO. We start from the 't Hooft-Feynman gauge Lagrangian in FeynRules and generate scattering amplitudes by identifying the Goldstone boson as the $5^{\rm th}$ component of each weak boson. All the vertices of the 5-component weak bosons are then created automatically by assembling the relevant weak boson and Goldstone boson vertices in the Feynman gauge. The 5-component weak boson vertices are then connected by the $5\times5$ matrix propagator in the FD gauge. As a demonstration of the method we calculate the cross section for the process $\mu^-\mu^+\to\nu_\mu\bar{\nu}_\mu t\bar{t}H$ with complex top Yukawa coupling, which can be obtained by adding a gauge invariant dimension-6 operator to the Standard Model (SM) Lagrangian. The FD gauge and the unitary (U) gauge amplitudes give exactly the same cross section, and subtle gauge theory cancellation among diagrams in the U gauge at high energies is absent in the FD gauge, as has been observed for various SM processes. In addition, we find that the total cross sections at high energies are dominated by a single, or a set of non-vanishing Feynman amplitudes with the higher dimensional vertices in the FD gauge., Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures and 1 table; typos corrected

Pair-produced long-lived lightest Higgsinos decaying within a few meters in the LHC detectors are considered. The relatively light nearly-pure Higgsino states object of this study are those of a supersymmetric minimal model with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking and heavy sfermions and gauginos. The heavier Higgsinos decay instantly into the lightest one, with very little activities. Hence, all pair-produced Higgsinos end up as a pair of the lightest neutral Higgsinos, possibly long lived and decaying into the gravitino and either the Higgs or the Z boson. If they decay inside the detectors, these bosons deposit huge energies in the calorimeters. The cross section $\sigma_2$ ($\sigma_1$) for the events with two (at least one) decaying-in-flight lightest Higgsinos is examined. The combination $(\sigma_1)^2/\sigma_2$ is found to be almost insensitive to the lightest Higgsino lifetime, thereby providing a good variable to measure its mass. The ratio $\sigma_1/\sigma_2$, instead, mildly dependent on its mass, can give good information on its lifetime. It is argued that the lightest Higgsinos in the events are rather slow, as the very relativistic ones escape away. Thus, the initial state radiations tend to be soft and a trigger system appropriate for such events is necessary to detect them., Comment: 1+11 pages

Recently proposed Feynman-diagram (FD) gauge propagator for massless and massive gauge bosons is obtained from a light-cone (LC) gauge propagator, by choosing the gauge vector along the opposite direction of the gauge boson three-momentum. We implement a general LC gauge propagator for all the gauge bosons of the Standard Model (SM) in the HELicity Amplitude Subroutines (HELAS) codes, such that all the SM helicity amplitudes can be evaluated at the tree level in the LC gauge by using MadGraph. We confirm that our numerical codes produce physical helicity amplitudes which are consistent among all gauge choices. We then study interference patterns among Feynman amplitudes, for a few $2\to3$ scattering processes in QED and QCD, and the process $\gamma\gamma\to W^+W^-$ followed by the $W^\pm$ decays. We find that in a generic LC gauge, where all the gauge boson propagators share a common gauge vector, we cannot remove the off-shell current components which grow with their energy systematically from all the Feynman amplitudes in $2\to3$ processes. On the other hand, the $5\times5$ LC gauge propagator for the weak bosons removes components which grow with energy due to the longitudinal polarization mode of the external bi-fermion currents, and hence can give $2\to2$ weak boson scattering amplitudes which are free from subtle cancellation at high energies. The particular choice of the FD gauge vector has advantages over generic LC gauge, not only because all the terms which grow with energy of off-shell and on-shell currents are removed systematically from all the diagrams, but also because no artificial gauge vector direction dependence of individual amplitudes appears., Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures; references added

We introduce a methodology and investigate the feasibility of measuring quantum properties of tau lepton pairs in the $H \to \tau^+ \tau^-$ decay at future lepton colliders. In particular, observation of entanglement, steerability and violation of Bell inequalities are examined for the ILC and FCC-ee. We find that detecting quantum correlation crucially relies on precise reconstruction of the tau lepton rest frame and a simple kinematics reconstruction does not suffice due to the finite energy resolution of the colliding beams and detectors. To correct for energy mismeasurements, a log-likelihood method is developed that incorporates the information of impact parameters of tau lepton decays. We demonstrate that an accurate measurement of quantum properties is possible with this method. As a by-product, we show that a novel model-independent test of CP violation can be performed and the CP-phase of $H \tau \tau$ interaction can be constrained with an accuracy comparable to dedicated analyses, i.e., up to $7.9^{\circ}$ and $5.4^{\circ}$ at ILC and FCC-ee, respectively., Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, Version published in PRD

In the 5-component representation of weak bosons, the first four components make a Lorentz four vector, representing the transverse and longitudinal polarizations excluding the scalar component of the weak bosons, whereas its fifth component corresponds to the Goldstone boson. We obtain the $5\times 5$ component propagators of off-shell weak bosons, proposed previously and named after the Goldstone boson equivalence theorem, by starting from the unitary-gauge representation of the tree-level scattering amplitudes, and by applying the BRST (Becchi--Rouet--Stora--Tyutin) identities to the two sub-amplitudes connected by each off-shell weak-boson line. By replacing all weak boson vertices with those among the off-shell 5-component wavefunctions, we arrive at the expression of the electroweak scattering amplitudes, where the magnitude of each Feynman amplitude has the correct on-shell limits for all internal propagators, and hence with no artificial gauge cancellation among diagrams. Although our derivation is limited to the tree-level only, it allows us to study the properties of each Feynman amplitude separately, and then learn how they interfere in the full amplitudes. We implement the 5-component weak boson propagators and their vertices in the numerical helicity amplitude calculation code HELAS (Helicity Amplitude Subroutines), so that an automatic amplitude generation program such as MadGraph can generate the scattering amplitudes without gauge cancellation. We present results for several high-energy scattering processes where subtle gauge-theory cancellation among diagrams takes place in all the other known approaches., Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures, 9 tables; v2: references added; v3: some issues clarified, references added, version to appear in EPJC

The International Linear Collider (ILC) is on the table now as a new global energy-frontier accelerator laboratory taking data in the 2030s. The ILC addresses key questions for our current understanding of particle physics. It is based on a proven accelerator technology. Its experiments will challenge the Standard Model of particle physics and will provide a new window to look beyond it. This document brings the story of the ILC up to date, emphasizing its strong physics motivation, its readiness for construction, and the opportunity it presents to the US and the global particle physics community., Comment: 356 pages, Large pdf file (40 MB) submitted to Snowmass 2021; v2 references to Snowmass contributions added, additional authors; v3 references added, some updates, additional authors

We present the cross section for $e^{+}e^{-}\to hZ$ with arbitrary sets of electron and $Z$ boson polarizations at the full next-to-leading order in various extended Higgs models, such as the Higgs singlet model (HSM), the inert doublet model (IDM) and the two Higgs doublet model (2HDM). We systematically perform complete one-loop calculations to the helicity amplitudes in the on-shell renormalization scheme, and present the full analytic results as well as numerical evaluations. The deviation $\Delta R^{hZ}$ in the total cross section from its standard model (SM) prediction is comprehensively analyzed, and the differences among these models are discussed in details. We find that new physics effects appearing in the renormalized $hZZ$ vertex almost govern the behavior of $\Delta R^{hZ}$, and it takes a negative value in most cases. The possible size of $\Delta R^{hZ}$ reaches several percent under the theoretical and experimental bounds. We also analyze the deviation $\Delta R^{hZ}_{XY}$ in the total cross section times decay branching ratios of the discovered Higgs boson by utilizing the $\texttt{H-COUP}$ program. It is found that the four types of 2HDMs can be discriminated by analyzing the correlation between $\Delta R^{hZ}_{\tau\tau}$ and $\Delta R^{hZ}_{bb}$ and those between $\Delta R^{hZ}_{\tau\tau}$ and $\Delta R^{hZ}_{cc}$. Furthermore, the HSM and the IDM can be discriminated from the 2HDMs by measuring $\Delta R^{hZ}_{WW}$. These signatures can be tested by precision measurements at future Higgs factories such as the International Linear Collider., Comment: 50 pages, 14 figures

We study a pseudoscalar dark-matter model arising from a complex singlet extension of the standard model (SM), and show that the dark-matter--nucleon scattering is suppressed when two CP-even scalars are degenerate. In such a degenerate-scalar scenario we explore the model parameter space which satisfies constraints from the direct detection experiments and the relic density of dark matter. In addition, we discuss a possibility to verify such a scenario by using the recoil mass technique at the International Linear Collider. We find that a pair of states separated by 0.2 GeV can be distinguished from the single SM-like Higgs state at 5$\sigma$ with integrated luminosity of 2 ab$^{-1}$., Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures. version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D

We discuss a possibility that the parameter space of the two Higgs doublet model is significantly narrowed down by considering the synergy between direct searches for additional Higgs bosons at the LHC and its luminosity upgraded operation and precision measurements of the Higgs boson properties at future electron-positron colliders such as the International Linear Collider. We show that, in the case where the coupling constants of the discovered Higgs boson are slightly different from the predicted values in the standard model, most of the parameter space is explored by the direct searches of extra Higgs bosons, in particular for the decays of the extra Higgs bosons into the discovered Higgs boson, and also by the theoretical arguments such as perturbative unitarity and vacuum stability. This can be done because there appears an upper limit on the mass of the extra Higgs bosons as long as the deviation exists in the Higgs boson coupling. We also show that in the alignment limit where all the Higgs boson couplings take the standard model like values most of the parameter space cannot be excluded because most of the Higgs to Higgs decays are suppressed and also there is no upper limit on the masses from the theoretical arguments., Comment: 58 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables

We introduce photon and gluon propagators in which the scalar polarization component is subtracted systematically by making use of the BRST invariance of the off-shell vector boson created from physical on-shell states. The propagator has the light-cone gauge form, where the spacial component of the gauge vector points along the negative of the off-shell vector boson momentum. We call the gauge as parton-shower gauge, since in collinear configurations the absolute value squared of each Feynman amplitude reproduces all the singular behaviors of the corresponding parton shower in this gauge. We introduce new HELAS codes that can be used to calculate the tree-level helicity amplitudes of arbitrary QED and QCD processes by using MadGraph. The absence of subtle gauge cancellation among Feynman amplitudes allows numerical codes to evaluate singular behaviors accurately, and helps us gaining physical insights on interference patterns., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures; v2: references added; v3: some issues clarified, a reference added, version to appear in EPJC

We present the concept of H-COUP_ver 2, which evaluates the decay rates (including higher order corrections) for the Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV in various extended Higgs models. In the previous version (H-COUP_1.0), only a full set of the Higgs boson vertices are evaluated at one-loop level in a gauge invariant manner in these models. H-COUP_ver 2 contains all the functions of H-COUP_1.0. After shortly introducing these extended Higgs models and discussing their theoretical and experimental constraints, we summarize formulae for the renormalized vertices and the decay rates. We then explain how to install and run H-COUP_ver 2 with some numerical examples., Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures, 7 tables; version published in Computer Physics Communications

The MadGraph5 aMC@NLO framework aims to automate all types of leading- and next-to-leading-order-accurate simulations for any user-defined model that stems from a renormalisable Lagrangian. In this paper, we present all of the key ingredients of such models in the context of supersymmetric theories. In order to do so, we extend the FeynRules package by giving it the possibility of dealing with different renormalisation options that are relevant to supersymmetric models. We also show how to deal with the problem posed by the presence of narrow resonances, thus generalising the so-called on-shell subtraction approaches. We extensively compare our total rate results with those of both Prospino2 and Resummino, and present illustrative applications relevant to the 13 TeV LHC, both at the total-rate and differential levels. The computer programs that we have used to obtain the predictions presented here are all publicly available., Comment: 69 pages, 15 figures, ancillary material including cross section tables (and material to reproduce our collider simulations)

We propose a procedure to cross-validate Monte Carlo implementations of the standard model effective field theory. It is based on the numerical comparison of squared amplitudes computed at specific phase-space and parameter points in pairs of implementations. Interactions are fully linearised in the effective field theory expansion. The squares of linear effective field theory amplitudes and their interference with standard-model contributions are compared separately. Such pairwise comparisons are primarily performed at tree level and a possible extension to the one-loop level is also briefly considered. We list the current standard model effective field theory implementations and the comparisons performed to date., Comment: agreement achieved under the auspices of the LHC Top and Electroweak Working Groups, and of the LHC Higgs Cross Section Working Group

We present a complete set of decay rates of the Higgs boson with the mass of 125 GeV at the full next-to-leading order in a variety of extended Higgs models; i.e., a model with an additional real singlet scalar field, four types of two Higgs doublet models and the inert doublet model. All the one-loop contributions due to QCD and electroweak interactions as well as scalar interactions are taken into account, and the calculations are systematically performed. Branching ratios for all the decay modes are evaluated in these models, and patterns of deviations in each decay mode from the standard model predictions are comprehensively analyzed. We show how these models with extended Higgs sectors can be distinguished by using our calculation of the branching ratios and future precision measurements of the Higgs boson decays., Comment: 58 pages, 22 figures, 5 tables; version published in Nuclear Physics B. Minor changes, Fig. 18 is improved

We propose a novel process where singly charged Higgs bosons are produced in a same-sign pair via vector boson fusion at hadron colliders in two Higgs doublet models. The process directly relates to the global symmetry structure of the Higgs potential. The produced charged Higgs bosons predominantly decay into a tau lepton and the neutrino or into a pair of top and bottom quarks, depending on the type of Yukawa interactions. We evaluate the signal and the background for the both cases at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and future higher-energy hadron colliders. We find that the process can be feasible and useful to explore the nature of the Higgs potential., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

Searches for dark matter (DM) produced using collider data probe wide regions of the allowed parameter space of many models and have become competitive with more traditional searches. The interpretations of the results can be efficiently performed in simplified models, which feature only a mediator and a DM candidate together with the interactions among them and the standard model particles. The DMSimp model in FeynRules currently features a wide set of $s$-channel simplified models and can be exploited by the MadGraph5_aMC@NLO framework to produce event samples including NLO QCD corrections for realistic simulations. Higher-order corrections typically have a sizeable impact on the total production rate and lead to a reduction of the theoretical uncertainties. In this short note we report on a recent update of the DMSimp model, which makes it possible to simulate dark matter production in association with bottom quarks in a mixed four-flavour scheme, where the $\overline{\rm MS}$ renormalisation for the bottom-quark Yukawa is employed, while the bottom quark mass is on shell. By comparing with five-flavour scheme, we show that the mixed four-flavor scheme provides reliable predictions for DM+$b\bar b$ final states in a wide range of DM masses., Comment: This paper is a documentation for the DMSimp model in FeynRules. It is also related to a talk from DM@LHC 2018 conference: https://indico.cern.ch/event/669891/contributions/2897855/

We study associated Higgs production with a photon at electron-positron colliders, $e^+e^-\to h\gamma$, in various extended Higgs models, such as the inert doublet model (IDM), the inert triplet model (ITM) and the two Higgs doublet model (THDM). The cross section in the standard model (SM) is maximal around $\sqrt{s}=$250 GeV, and we present how and how much the new physics can enhance or reduce the production rate. We also discuss the correlation with the $h\to\gamma\gamma$ and $h\to Z\gamma$ decay rates. We find that, with a sizable coupling to a SM-like Higgs boson, charged scalars can give considerable contributions to both the production and the decay if their masses are around 100 GeV. Under the theoretical constraints from vacuum stability and perturbative unitarity as well as the current constraints from the Higgs measurements at the LHC, the production rate can be enhanced from the SM prediction at most by a factor of two in the IDM. In the ITM, in addition, we find a particular parameter region where the $h\gamma$ production significantly increases by a factor of about six to eight, but the $h\to\gamma\gamma$ decay still remains as in the SM. In the THDM, possible deviations from the SM prediction are minor in the viable parameter space., Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures; Version published in Phys. Rev. D. References and Fig.4 added

In order to identify the Higgs sector using future precision data, we calculate the partial decay widths of the discovered Higgs boson with the mass of 125 GeV into fermion pairs and gauge-boson pairs with one-loop electroweak and one-loop QCD corrections in various extended Higgs models, such as the Higgs singlet model and four types of two Higgs doublet models. In the tree-level analysis, the patterns of deviations from the standard model predictions in the partial decay widths for various decay modes are distinctive for each model, due to the mixing of the Higgs boson with other neutral scalars. Our present analysis shows that even with a full set of radiative corrections we can discriminate these extended Higgs models via the partial decay widths as long as any of the deviations is detected at future precision measurements. Furthermore, we quantitatively show that in each model the magnitude of the deviations can provide important information on the mass scale of extra Higgs bosons under the theoretical constraints from perturbative unitary and vacuum stability, which can be obtained without discovery of the additional Higgs bosons., Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; Version published in Physics Letters B. References and a paragraph in the end of Sec.IV.A added, resulting in improvements of Figs.2-5 (results unchanged)

Weakly-coupled TeV-scale particles may mediate the interactions between normal matter and dark matter. If so, the LHC would produce dark matter through these mediators, leading to the familiar "mono-X" search signatures, but the mediators would also produce signals without missing momentum via the same vertices involved in their production. This document from the LHC Dark Matter Working Group suggests how to compare searches for these two types of signals in case of vector and axial-vector mediators, based on a workshop that took place on September 19/20, 2016 and subsequent discussions. These suggestions include how to extend the spin-1 mediated simplified models already in widespread use to include lepton couplings. This document also provides analytic calculations of the relic density in the simplified models and reports an issue that arose when ATLAS and CMS first began to use preliminary numerical calculations of the dark matter relic density in these models., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures; v2: author list and LaTeX problem fixed

We consider simplified dark matter models where a dark matter candidate couples to the standard model (SM) particles via an $s$-channel spin-2 mediator, and study constraints on the model parameter space from the current LHC data. Our focus lies on the complementarity among different searches, in particular monojet and multijet plus missing energy searches and resonance searches. For universal couplings of the mediator to SM particles, missing-energy searches can give stronger constraints than $WW$, $ZZ$, dijet, dihiggs, $t\bar t$, $b\bar b$ resonance searches in the low-mass region and/or when the coupling of the mediator to dark matter is much larger than its couplings to SM particles. The strongest constraints however come from diphoton and dilepton resonance searches. Only if these modes are suppressed, missing-energy searches can be competitive in constraining dark matter models with a spin-2 mediator., Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables. Supplemental material for this paper can be downloaded from http://lpsc.in2p3.fr/projects-th/recasting/spin2mediator/ ; v2: Constraints from LHC 8TeV resonance searches added, version accepted by EPJC

We study the impact of dimension-six operators of the standard model effective field theory relevant for vector-boson fusion and associated Higgs boson production at the LHC. We present predictions at the next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD that include matching to parton showers and that rely on fully automated simulations. We show the importance of the subsequent reduction of the theoretical uncertainties in improving the possible discrimination between effective field theory and standard model results, and we demonstrate that the range of the Wilson coefficient values allowed by a global fit to LEP and LHC Run~I data can be further constrained by LHC Run~II future results., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures; version accepted by EPJC

We study Higgs boson production in association with a top quark and a $W$ boson at the LHC. At NLO in QCD, $tWH$ interferes with $t\bar t H$ and a procedure to meaningfully separate the two processes needs to be employed. In order to define $tWH$ production for both total rates and differential distributions, we consider the diagram removal and diagram subtraction techniques that have been previously proposed for treating intermediate resonances at NLO, in particular in the context of $tW$ production. These techniques feature approximations that need to be carefully taken into account when theoretical predictions are compared to experimental measurements. To this aim, we first critically revisit the $tW$ process, for which an extensive literature exists and where an analogous interference with $t \bar t$ production takes place. We then provide robust results for total and differential cross sections for $tW$ and $tWH$ at 13 TeV, also matching short-distance events to a parton shower. We formulate a reliable prescription to estimate the theoretical uncertainties, including those associated to the very definition of the process at NLO. Finally, we study the sensitivity to a non-Standard-Model relative phase between the Higgs couplings to the top quark and to the $W$ boson in $tWH$ production., Comment: v3: expanded some discussions in the text, improved some plots (results unchanged)

Studies of dark matter lie at the interface of collider physics, astrophysics and cosmology. Constraining models featuring dark matter candidates entails the capability to provide accurate predictions for large sets of observables and compare them to a wide spectrum of data. We present a framework which, starting from a model lagrangian, allows one to consistently and systematically make predictions, as well as to confront those predictions with a multitude of experimental results. As an application, we consider a class of simplified dark matter models where a scalar mediator couples only to the top quark and a fermionic dark sector (i.e. the simplified top-philic dark matter model). We study in detail the complementarity of relic density, direct/indirect detection and collider searches in constraining the multi-dimensional model parameter space, and efficiently identify regions where individual approaches to dark matter detection provide the most stringent bounds. In the context of collider studies of dark matter, we point out the complementarity of LHC searches in probing different regions of the model parameter space with final states involving top quarks, photons, jets and/or missing energy. Our study of dark matter production at the LHC goes beyond the tree-level approximation and we show examples of how higher-order corrections to dark matter production processes can affect the interpretation of the experimental results., Comment: 52 pages, 23 figures

We study kinematic distributions that may help characterise the recently observed excess in diphoton events at 750 GeV at the LHC Run 2. Several scenarios are considered, including spin-0 and spin-2 750 GeV resonances that decay directly into photon pairs as well as heavier parent resonances that undergo three-body or cascade decays. We find that combinations of the distributions of the diphoton system and the leading photon can distinguish the topology and mass spectra of the different scenarios, while patterns of QCD radiation can help differentiate the production mechanisms. Moreover, missing energy is a powerful discriminator for the heavy parent scenarios if they involve (effectively) invisible particles. While our study concentrates on the current excess at 750 GeV, the analysis is general and can also be useful for characterising other potential diphoton signals in the future., Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, 1 table; v2: references added, version to appear in JHEP

We provide a possible explanation of a 750 GeV diphoton excess recently reported by both the ATLAS and CMS collaborations in the context of phenomenological spin-2 resonance scenarios, where the independent effective couplings of the resonance with gluons, quarks and photons are considered. We find a parameter region where the excess can be accounted for without conflicting with dijet constraints. We also show that the kinematical distributions might help to determine the couplings to gluons and quarks., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; v2: references added, version to appear in PRD

We develop the phenomenology of scenarios in which a dark matter candidate interacts with a top quark through flavour-changing couplings, employing a simplified dark matter model with an s-channel vector-like mediator. We study in detail the top-charm flavour-changing interaction, by investigating the single top plus large missing energy signature at the LHC as well as constraints from the relic density and direct and indirect dark matter detection experiments. We present strategies to distinguish between the top-charm and top-up flavour-changing models by taking advantage of the lepton charge asymmetry as well as by using charm-tagging techniques on an extra jet. We also show the complementarity between the LHC and canonical dark matter experiments in exploring the viable parameter space of the models., Comment: 40 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables

We introduce Rosetta, a program allowing for the translation between different bases of effective field theory operators. We present the main functions of the program and provide an example of usage. One of the Lagrangians which Rosetta can translate into has been implemented into FeynRules, which allows Rosetta to be interfaced into various high-energy physics programs such as Monte Carlo event generators. In addition to popular bases choices, such as the Warsaw and Strongly Interacting Light Higgs bases already implemented in the program, we also detail how to add new operator bases into the Rosetta package. In this way, phenomenological studies using an effective field theory framework can be straightforwardly performed., Comment: 12 pages, Matches version to be published in EPJC

Weakly interacting dark matter particles can be pair-produced at colliders and detected through signatures featuring missing energy in association with either QCD/EW radiation or heavy quarks. In order to constrain the mass and the couplings to standard model particles, accurate and precise predictions for production cross sections and distributions are of prime importance. In this work, we consider various simplified models with s-channel mediators. We implement such models in the FeynRules/MadGraph5_aMC@NLO framework, which allows to include higher-order QCD corrections in realistic simulations and to study their effect systematically. As a first phenomenological application, we present predictions for dark matter production in association with jets and with a top-quark pair at the LHC, at next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD, including matching/merging to parton showers. Our study shows that higher-order QCD corrections to dark matter production via s-channel mediators have a significant impact not only on total production rates, but also on shapes of distributions. We also show that the inclusion of next-to-leading order effects results in a sizeable reduction of the theoretical uncertainties., Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables; v2: version to appear in EPJC

This document is the final report of the ATLAS-CMS Dark Matter Forum, a forum organized by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations with the participation of experts on theories of Dark Matter, to select a minimal basis set of dark matter simplified models that should support the design of the early LHC Run-2 searches. A prioritized, compact set of benchmark models is proposed, accompanied by studies of the parameter space of these models and a repository of generator implementations. This report also addresses how to apply the Effective Field Theory formalism for collider searches and present the results of such interpretations.

We study a possible explanation of a 3.0 $\sigma$ excess recently reported by the ATLAS Collaboration in events with Z-peaked same-flavour opposite-sign lepton pair, jets and large missing transverse momentum in the context of gauge-mediated SUSY breaking with more than one hidden sector, the so-called goldstini scenario. In a certain parameter space, the gluino two-body decay chain $\tilde g\to g\tilde\chi^0_{1,2}\to gZ\tilde G'$ becomes dominant, where $\tilde\chi^0_{1,2}$ and $\tilde G'$ are the Higgsino-like neutralino and the massive pseudo-goldstino, respectively, and gluino pair production can contribute to the signal. We find that a mass spectrum such as $m_{\tilde g}\sim 1000$ GeV, $m_{\tilde\chi^0_{1,2}}\sim 800$ GeV and $m_{\tilde G'}\sim 600$ GeV demonstrates the rate and the distributions of the excess, without conflicting with the stringent constraints from jets plus missing energy analyses and with the CMS constraint on the identical final state., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 1 table; v2: the CMS binned on-Z analyses added, resulting in a small change in the best fit benchmark; v3: some issues clarified, fig.7 added, version to appear in PLB

We present the Higgs Characterisation (HC) framework to study the properties of the Higgs boson observed at 125 GeV. In this report, we focus on CP properties of the top-quark Yukawa interaction, and show predictions at next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD, including parton-shower effects, for Higgs production in association with a single top quark at the LHC., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables. Proceedings for Toyama International Workshop on Higgs as a Probe of New Physics 2015 (HPNP2015), 11-15 Feb. 2015

We present a detailed study of Higgs boson production in association with a single top quark at the LHC, at next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD. We consider total and differential cross sections, at the parton level as well as by matching short distance events to parton showers, for both t-channel and s-channel production. We provide predictions relevant for the LHC at 13 TeV together with a thorough evaluation of the residual uncertainties coming from scale variation, parton distributions, strong coupling constant and heavy quark masses. In addition, for t-channel production, we compare results as obtained in the 4-flavour and 5-flavour schemes, pinning down the most relevant differences between them. Finally, we study the sensitivity to a non-standard-model relative phase between the Higgs couplings to the top quark and to the weak bosons., Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables; v2: version to appear in EPJC

We investigate contributions of Kaluza-Klein (KK) graviton in extra dimension models to the process $pp \to p\gamma p \to p\gamma j X$, where a proton emits a quasireal photon and is detected by using the very forward detectors planned at the LHC. In addition to the $\gamma q$ initial state as in the Compton scattering in the standard model, the $\gamma g$ scattering contributes through the $t$-channel exchange of KK gravitons. Taking account of pileup contributions to the background and examining viable kinematical cuts, constraints on the parameter space of both the ADD (Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali) model and the RS (Randall and Sundrum) model are studied. With 200 fb$^{-1}$ data at a center-of-mass energy of 14 TeV, the expected lower bound on the cut-off scale for the ADD model is 6.3 TeV at 95% confidence level, while a lower limit of 2.0 (0.5) TeV is set on the mass of the first excited graviton with the coupling parameter $k/\overline{M}_{\rm Pl}=0.1$ (0.01) for the RS model., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, 1 table; v2: a footnote and references added, version to appear in PRD

Very light gravitinos could be produced at a sizeable rate at colliders and have been searched for in the mono-photon or mono-jet plus missing momentum signature. Strategies for enhancing the signal over background and interpretations of the experimental results are typically obtained within an effective field theory approach where all SUSY particles except the gravitino are heavy and are not produced resonantly. We extend this approach to a simplified model that includes squarks and gluinos in the TeV range. In such a case, the jet(s)-plus-missing-momentum signature can be generated through three different concurring mechanisms: gravitino-pair production with an extra jet, associated gravitino production with a squark or a gluino, or squark/gluino pair production with their subsequent decay to a gravitino and a jet. By using a matrix-element parton-shower merging procedure, we take into account all the relevant production processes consistently, explore the SUSY parameter space with the LHC Run-I data set, and give prospects for the Run II. We also consider the reach of other signatures involving electroweak particles, e.g., the mono-photon, -Z, or -W plus missing momentum. The current mono-jet and mono-photon LHC analyses are interpreted to set a lower bound on the gravitino mass. We show how the limit of $m_{3/2}>1.7\times10^{-13}$ GeV obtained in the effective field theory hypothesis is modified when the squarks and/or the gluino are in the TeV range., Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures, 1 table; v2: a reference added

Many theories beyond the Standard Model predict the existence of colored scalar states, known as sgluons, lying in the adjoint representation of the QCD gauge group. In scenarios where they are top-philic, sgluons are expected to be copiously pair-produced at the LHC via strong interactions with decays into pairs of top quarks or gluons. Consequently, sgluons can be sought in multijet and multitop events at the LHC. We revisit two LHC Run I analyses in which events featuring either the same-sign dileptonic decay of a four-top-quark system or its single leptonic decay are probed. Adopting a simplified model approach, we show how this reinterpretation allows us to extract simultaneous bounds on the sgluon mass and couplings., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; v2: some issues in Sec.3.1 clarified, version to appear in PLB

At the LHC the CP properties of the top-quark Yukawa interaction can be probed through Higgs production in gluon fusion or in association with top quarks. We consider the possibility for both CP-even and CP-odd couplings to the top quark to be present, and study CP-sensitive observables at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD, including parton-shower effects. We show that the inclusion of NLO corrections sizeably reduces the theoretical uncertainties, and confirm that di-jet correlations in $H+2$ jet production through gluon fusion and correlations of the top-quark decay products in $t\bar tH$ production can provide sensitive probes of the CP nature of the Higgs interactions., Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, 12 tables; v2: references added, version to appear in EPJC

If light--flavor squarks and gluinos are indeed heavy and chargino pair production is plagued with overwhelming backgrounds, pair production and associated production of stops and charginos will become the key signatures in the upcoming LHC runs. We present fully automated next-to-leading order predictions for heavy flavor squark production at the LHC, including stop-chargino associated production, based on MadGolem. We compute the total and differential NLO rates for a variety of MSSM scenarios with a light third generation. We focus on theoretical uncertainties on differential rates, including a comparison to multi-jet merging and the impact of bottom parton densities for stop-chargino associated production. We find that for the associated production channel the rates can reach tens of femtobarns, but the scale dependence does not provide a conservative estimate of the theoretical uncertainties., Comment: 17 Pages, 7 Figures, 3 tables

We revisit the monophoton plus missing energy signature at $e^+e^-$ colliders in supersymmetric (SUSY) models where the gravitino is very light. There are two possible processes which provide the signal: gravitino pair production and associated gravitino production with a neutralino, leading the monophoton final state via an additional photon radiation and via the neutralino decay, respectively. By using the superspace formalism, we construct a model that allows us to study the parameter space for the both processes. We show that the signal cross section and the photon spectra provide information on the masses of the SUSY particles as well as the SUSY breaking scale., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables; v2: some issues clarified, fig.3, eq.24 and references added, version accepted by EPJC

We study models of gauge mediated SUSY breaking with more than one hidden sector. In these models the neutralino sector of the MSSM is supplemented with additional light neutral fermions, the nearly massless gravitino and the massive pseudo-goldstini. For the case where the Bino is the lightest ordinary SUSY particle, its preferred decay is to a photon and the heaviest pseudo-goldstino, which generically cascades down to lighter pseudo-goldstini, or to the gravitino, in association with photons. This gives rise to multiphoton plus missing energy signatures at the LHC. We investigate in detail simplified models where the SUSY spectrum consists of the right-handed sleptons, a Bino-like neutralino, the pseudo-goldstini and the gravitino. We compare against existing LHC searches and show that the sensitivity to our models could be significantly improved by relaxing the kinematic cuts and requiring additional final state particles. We propose inclusive searches in the final state with at least three photons plus missing energy and in the final state with at least two photons plus two leptons plus missing energy, the former being sensitive to any production mode and the latter being optimized for slepton pair production. We show that they could lead to an observation (or strong constraints) already with the data set from LHC Run I, and present prospects for LHC Run II., Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables. v2: improvements and corrections in section 3.2 about pseudogoldstino decays. Published in JHEP

Vector-boson fusion and associated production at the LHC can provide key information on the strength and structure of the Higgs couplings to the Standard Model particles. Using an effective field theory approach, we study the effects of next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections matched to parton shower on selected observables for various spin-0 hypotheses. We find that inclusion of NLO corrections is needed to reduce the theoretical uncertainties on total rates as well as to reliably predict the shapes of the distributions. Our results are obtained in a fully automatic way via FeynRules and MadGraph5_aMC@NLO., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 7 tables; v2: sign error of g_AVV in table 2 corrected and references added, version to appear in EPJC; v3: typos in eq.(1) corrected

We investigate multilepton LHC signals arising from electroweak processes involving sleptons. We consider the framework of general gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking, focusing on models where the low mass region of the superpartner spectrum consists of the three generations of charged sleptons and the nearly massless gravitino. We demonstrate how such models can provide an explanation for the anomalous four lepton events recently observed by the CMS collaboration, while satisfying other existing experimental constraints. The best fit to the CMS data is obtained for a selectron/smuon mass of around 145 GeV and a stau mass of around 90 GeV. These models also give rise to final states with more than four leptons, offering alternative channels in which they can be probed and we estimate the corresponding production rates at the LHC., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, 1 table; version accepted by PLB