Tera-Zooming in on Light (Composite) Axion-Like Particles
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Tera-Zooming in on light (composite) axion-like particles G. Cacciapaglia1;2,∗ A. Deandrea1;2,y A.M. Iyer1;2;5,z and K. Sridhar3;4x 1University of Lyon, Universit´eClaude Bernard Lyon 1, F-69001 Lyon, France 2Institut de Physique des 2 Infinis de Lyon (IP2I), UMR5822, CNRS/IN2P3, F-69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France 3 Department of Theoretical Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai-400005, India 4Krea University, Sri City, Andhra Pradesh-517646, India 5 Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi-110016, India The Tera-Z phase of future e+e− colliders, FCC-ee and CepC, is a goldmine for exploring Z portal physics. We focus on axion-like particles (ALPs) that can be produced via Z decays with a monochromatic photon. As a template model, we consider composite Higgs models with a light pseudo-scalar that couples through the Wess-Zumino-Witten term to the electroweak gauge bosons. For both photophilic and photophobic cases, we show that the Tera-Z can probe composite scales up to 100s of TeV, well beyond the capability of the LHC and current precision physics. Our results also apply to generic ALPs and, in particular, severely constrain models that explain the muon g −2 anomaly. New physics extensions of the Standard Model (SM) ded in several UV frameworks, two scenarios of inter- often contain additional scalar bosons. Their presence est are ALPs [17, 18] and models of composite Higgs can be linked to symmetries, as is the case for axions [1, 2] [5, 31, 39, 45]. In either case, the pseudo-scalar a emerges and for the second Higgs doublet in supersymmetry [3], as a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone Boson (pNGB) of a spon- or to the composite nature of the SM extension [4{6]. taneously broken global symmetry and, therefore, can be Extended scalar sectors are also popular as they offer in- much lighter that the scale Λ. Due to the absence of cou- teresting model building avenues: multiple doublets [7, 8] plings to gluons and fermions, direct and indirect bounds enrich the Higgs sector of the SM, while triplets emerge are relatively weak, especially in the mass range between in neutrino type-II see-saw models [9] and the custodial 1 GeV and the Z mass (e.g., see [20, 28, 46]). Couplings Georgi-Machacek model [10, 11]. Singlets can provide to fermions are, in fact, generated at loop level [28], and Dark Matter candidates [12, 13] or help achieving an elec- their effect is fully taken into account in this work. troweak first order phase transition [14, 15], as required In this letter we point out that future electron-positron by baryogenesis and leptogenesis [16]. Pseudo-scalars are colliders running at the Z pole, like FCC-ee [47] and of special interest, as they exhibit different properties CepC [48], are discovery machines for these light a's from those of the Higgs boson. While these states map thanks to the leading-order coupling Zaγ contained in to several Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) scenar- Eq. (1). With a projected number of Z bosons produced ios, they can be broadly classified on the basis of the in the few times 1012 ballpark, the so-called Tera-Z run nature of their interactions. In this letter, we focus on has the capability of probing the composite nature of the Axion-Like Particles (ALPs) [17, 18], which, being gauge Higgs boson up to very large scales. In this work, we will singlets, couple to the SM gauge bosons and fermions via focus on two distinct scenarios: dimension-5 operators. They have had implications for a) Photophobic, corresponding to C = −C and have been studied in several areas of particle physics: B W in Eq. (1). In this case, the coupling to pho- flavour [19{27], colliders [28{34], as a dark matter can- tons (C = C + C ) vanishes. Composite didate [18, 25, 35{40]. For a comprehensive insight into γγ W B models based on SU(4)=Sp(4) [4, 39, 45] and these models, see for example [34, 41, 42]. arXiv:2104.11064v1 [hep-ph] 22 Apr 2021 SU(4)2=SU(4) [49] fall under this category. Cur- In particular, motivated by composite Higgs models, rent bounds have been collected in [46]. we will study a special case where only Wess-Zumino- Witten (WZW) couplings [43, 44] to the electroweak b) Photophilic, corresponding to CB = CW . In this gauge bosons are present at the leading order: case, the dominant coupling for masses below the Z is to two photons. Composite models based on 2 CW µν 02 CB µν LWZW = a g Wµν W~ + g Bµν B~ ; (1) SU(5)=SO(5) [5, 50, 51] fall in this category. The Λ Λ current bounds mainly relying on the photon cou- pling are summarised in [20]. We should also note where W; B are the electroweak bosons of the SU(2) × L that loop induced couplings to the Higgs in compos- U(1) gauge group respectively and a is the pseudo- Y ite models are suppressed once compared to generic scalar field. Here, Λ is the mass scale in the effective ALP scenarios [30]. theory where the couplings are generated, while the co- efficients CW;B are determined by the ultraviolet (UV) A remarkable class of composite ALPs, which falls in completion. While these couplings could be embed- the Photophilic class, is composed of U(1) pNGBs in 2 models with top partial compositeness [29, 31, 40]: while iii) For L > 100 cm, we consider the signature of a they feature leading order couplings to gluons, the LHC to be missing energy, as it will decay outside the bounds remain relatively weak [29]. As already men- tracker and leave no identifiable trace in the detec- tioned, the results we present in this work are not spe- tor. cial to composite models and can be applied straightfor- wardly to a generic ALP scenario. We use the composite The regions in the 2-dimensional parameter space corre- Higgs framework as a template to visualize the results. sponding to the above three classes are highlighted by the As such, the coupling CW can be expressed as shaded regions in Fig. 3 for both Photophobic and Pho- tophilic ALPs. Thanks to the prompt decay into photons, C d W = p ; (2) the Photophilic ALP has reduced regions with long-lived Λ 64 2π2f or missing energy phenomenology. For the Photophobic case, the prompt decays only occur above the b¯b thresh- where f is the decay constant of the composite Higgs (it is old. implicitly assumed that f is larger than the Higgs vacuum The Tera-Z phase of the FCC-ee and CepC collid- expectation value v) and d counts the internal degrees of ers presents a unique opportunity for studying Z por- freedom of the fermions confined in the composite Higgs. tal physics. With the projected integrated Luminosity, In the numerical study, we will fix d = 4 following the ∼ 6 × 1012 Z bosons will be produced, thus promis- most minimal cases [52]. The results will also be shown ing a remarkable reach for very rare Z decays. In the in terms of the so-called fine-tuning parameter v=f. models under consideration, we obtain branching ratios Z ! aγ between 10−8 and 10−12, for values of f between 1 and 100 TeV . Thus, the Tera-Z run has the potential to probe compositeness scales f well beyond what cur- rent electroweak precision and the LHC can do, as they probe f up to a 2{3 TeV [41]. Using a UFO model file from FEYNRULES [53], we generated the matrix element of interest for the signal, M(e+e− ! Z ! aγ), using MADGRAPH [54]. We pass the events through PYTHIA for the showering and hadronization. The IDEA detector card of DELPHES [55] is used for the fast detector simula- tion. FIG. 1. Branching ratios (B.R.) for the pseudo-scalar a in the Prompt decays. In the Photophobic models, prompt Photophobic case, as a function of its mass. decays take place for masses above the b¯b threshold, where the dominant final state comprises bottom quarks. We use the results from [28], including loop-induced Thus we consider the main signal to be Z ! γa ! γb¯b, couplings to fermions and photons, to calculate the par- leading to one isolated monochromatic photon and a pair tial decay widths of the pseudo-scalar a. As all the cou- of b-jets. The jets are reconstructed using the AK4 [56] plings are proportional to the same coefficient CW =Λ, algorithm, requiring each jet to have a minimum trans- the branching ratios only depend on the a mass, as illus- min verse momentum pT = 4 GeV. Furthermore, we de- trated in Fig.1 for the Photophobic case. The dominant mand that at least one of the jets is tagged as a b- decay is always into the heaviest accessible quark, while jet. Given the absence of data for a pT specific b- sub-leading decays into photons grow towards the Z mass tagging efficiency for the IDEA detector, we assume a threshold. In the Photophilic Case, the dominant decay pT -independent tag rate of 80%, with a mis-tag rate of is always into two photons, independent of the mass. The 1%. The dominant background is due to the decay of only physical quantities that depend on the WZW cou- Z ! b¯bγ where the photon is radiated off one of the b pling are the branching ratio of Z ! aγ and the lifetime quarks (while Z ! jjγ is suppressed by the jet mis-tag of a.