Search for heavy neutrinos and [Formula: see text] bosons with right-handed couplings in proton-proton collisions at [Formula: see text]

Long-lived particles at the energy frontier: the MATHUSLA physics case

We examine the theoretical motivations for long-lived particle (LLP) signals at the LHC in a comprehensive survey of standard model (SM) extensions. LLPs are a common prediction of a wide range of theories that address unsolved fundamental mysteries such as naturalness, dark matter, baryogenesis and neutrino masses, and represent a natural and generic possibility for physics beyond the SM (BSM). In most cases the LLP lifetime can be treated as a free parameter from the [Formula: see text]m scale up to the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis limit of [Formula: see text] m. Neutral LLPs with lifetimes above [Formula: see text]100 m are particularly difficult to probe, as the sensitivity of the LHC main detectors is limited by challenging backgrounds, triggers, and small acceptances. MATHUSLA is a proposal for a minimally instrumented, large-volume surface detector near ATLAS or CMS. It would search for neutral LLPs produced in HL-LHC collisions by reconstructing displaced vertices (DVs) in a low-background environment, extending the sensitivity of the main detectors by orders of magnitude in the long-lifetime regime. We study the LLP physics opportunities afforded by a MATHUSLA-like detector at the HL-LHC, assuming backgrounds can be rejected as expected. We develop a model-independent approach to describe the sensitivity of MATHUSLA to BSM LLP signals, and compare it to DV and missing energy searches at ATLAS or CMS. We then explore the BSM motivations for LLPs in considerable detail, presenting a large number of new sensitivity studies. While our discussion is especially oriented towards the long-lifetime regime at MATHUSLA, this survey underlines the importance of a varied LLP search program at the LHC in general. By synthesizing these results into a general discussion of the top-down and bottom-up motivations for LLP searches, it is our aim to demonstrate the exceptional strength and breadth of the physics case for the construction of the MATHUSLA detector.

Search for Heavy Neutral Leptons in Events with Three Charged Leptons in Proton-Proton Collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV

A search for a heavy neutral lepton N of Majorana nature decaying into a W boson and a charged lepton is performed using the CMS detector at the LHC. The targeted signature consists of three prompt charged leptons in any flavor combination of electrons and muons. The data were collected in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, with an integrated luminosity of 35.9  fb^{-1}. The search is performed in the N mass range between 1 GeV and 1.2 TeV. The data are found to be consistent with the expected standard model background. Upper limits are set on the values of |V_{eN}|^{2} and |V_{μN}|^{2}, where V_{ℓN} is the matrix element describing the mixing of N with the standard model neutrino of flavor ℓ. These are the first direct limits for N masses above 500 GeV and the first limits obtained at a hadron collider for N masses below 40 GeV.

A facility to search for hidden particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case

This paper describes the physics case for a new fixed target facility at CERN SPS. The SHiP (search for hidden particles) experiment is intended to hunt for new physics in the largely unexplored domain of very weakly interacting particles with masses below the Fermi scale, inaccessible to the LHC experiments, and to study tau neutrino physics. The same proton beam setup can be used later to look for decays of tau-leptons with lepton flavour number non-conservation, [Formula: see text] and to search for weakly-interacting sub-GeV dark matter candidates. We discuss the evidence for physics beyond the standard model and describe interactions between new particles and four different portals-scalars, vectors, fermions or axion-like particles. We discuss motivations for different models, manifesting themselves via these interactions, and how they can be probed with the SHiP experiment and present several case studies. The prospects to search for relatively light SUSY and composite particles at SHiP are also discussed. We demonstrate that the SHiP experiment has a unique potential to discover new physics and can directly probe a number of solutions of beyond the standard model puzzles, such as neutrino masses, baryon asymmetry of the Universe, dark matter, and inflation.

W' Boson near 2 TeV: Predictions for Run 2 of the LHC

We present a renormalizable theory that includes a W' boson of mass in the 1.8-2 TeV range, which may explain the excess events reported by the ATLAS Collaboration in a WZ final state, and by the CMS Collaboration in e(+)e(-)jj, Wh(0), and jj final states. The W' boson couples to right-handed quarks and leptons, including Dirac neutrinos with TeV-scale masses. This theory predicts a Z' boson of mass in the 3.4-4.5 TeV range. The cross section times branching fractions for the narrow Z' dijet and dilepton peaks at the 13 TeV LHC are 10 and 0.6 fb, respectively, for M_(Z')=3.4  TeV, and an order of magnitude smaller for M_(Z')=4.5  TeV.

Unified Explanation of the eejj, Diboson, and Dijet Resonances at the LHC

We show that the excess events observed in a number of recent LHC resonance searches can be simultaneously explained within a nonsupersymmetric left-right inverse seesaw model for neutrino masses with W_{R} mass around 1.9 TeV. The minimal particle content that leads to gauge coupling unification in this model predicts g_{R}≃0.51 at the TeV scale, which is consistent with data. The extra color singlet, SU(2)-triplet fermions required for unification can be interpreted as the dark matter of the Universe. Future measurements of the ratio of same-sign to opposite-sign dilepton events can provide a way to distinguish this scenario from the canonical cases of type-I and inverse seesaw, i.e., provide a measure of the relative magnitudes of the Dirac and Majorana masses of the right-handed neutrinos in the SU(2)_{R} doublet of the left-right symmetric model.

Minimal Left-Right Symmetric Dark Matter

We show that left-right symmetric models can easily accommodate stable TeV-scale dark matter particles without the need for an ad hoc stabilizing symmetry. The stability of a newly introduced multiplet either arises accidentally as in the minimal dark matter framework or comes courtesy of the remaining unbroken Z_{2} subgroup of B-L. Only one new parameter is introduced: the mass of the new multiplet. As minimal examples, we study left-right fermion triplets and quintuplets and show that they can form viable two-component dark matter. This approach is, in particular, valid for SU(2)×SU(2)×U(1) models that explain the recent diboson excess at ATLAS in terms of a new charged gauge boson of mass 2 TeV.

Lepton Number Violation in Higgs Decay at LHC

We show that within the left-right symmetric model, lepton number violating decays of the Higgs boson can be discovered at the LHC. The process is due to the mixing of the Higgs boson with the triplet that breaks parity. As a result, the Higgs boson can act as a gateway to the origin of the heavy Majorana neutrino mass. To assess the LHC reach, a detailed collider study of the same-sign dileptons plus jets channel is provided. This process is complementary to the existing nuclear and collider searches for lepton number violation and can probe the scale of parity restoration even beyond other direct searches.

Right-handed quark mixing in left-right symmetric theory

We give exact formulas for the right-handed analog of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix in the minimal left-right symmetric theory, for the case when the left-right symmetry is generalized parity as in the original version of the theory. We derive its explicit form and give a physical reason for the known and surprising fact that the right-handed mixing angles are close to the CKM ones, in spite of the left-right symmetry being badly broken in nature. We exemplify our results on the production of the right-handed charged gauge boson and the computation of K(L)-K(S) mass difference.