Excited Quark Production at Future $\gamma p$ Colliders

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential to discover excited quarks at future gamma-proton colliders, analyzing production mechanisms, decay channels, signatures, backgrounds, and setting discovery limits on quark masses and model parameters.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed study of excited quark production at future gamma-proton colliders, including decay channels, signatures, backgrounds, and discovery potential.

Findings

Discovery limits for excited quark masses are established.

Signatures for excited quark detection are identified.

Standard model backgrounds are thoroughly analyzed.

Abstract

Excited quark production at future $\gamma p$ colliders is studied. Namely, $\gamma p \to q^{*}X$ with subsequent $q^{*}\to gq$ and $\gamma q $ decay channels are considered. Signatures for discovery of the excited quark and corresponding standard model backgrounds are discussed in detail. Discovery limits for excited quark masses and achievable values of compositeness parameters $f_s$, $f$ and $f^\prime $ are determined.