The LHC String Hunter's Companion

TL;DR

This paper explores the phenomenology of low-mass string theories at the LHC, providing model-independent string amplitude calculations that could reveal Regge resonances as signals of string physics.

Contribution

It offers comprehensive, model-independent string amplitude computations for LHC processes, enabling experimental searches for low-mass string signatures with detailed resonance predictions.

Findings

Resonant behavior at Regge resonance energies in gluon scattering.

Model-independent amplitudes for key 2->2 parton processes.

Potential to distinguish compactification scenarios through four-fermion processes.

Abstract

The mass scale of fundamental strings can be as low as few TeV/c^2 provided that spacetime extends into large extra dimensions. We discuss the phenomenological aspects of weakly coupled low mass string theory related to experimental searches for physics beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We consider the extensions of the Standard Model based on open strings ending on D-branes, with gauge bosons due to strings attached to stacks of D-branes and chiral matter due to strings stretching between intersecting D-branes. We focus on the model-independent, universal features of low mass string theory. We compute, collect and tabulate the full-fledged string amplitudes describing all 2->2 parton scattering subprocesses at the leading order of string perturbation theory. We cast our results in a form suitable for the implementation of stringy partonic cross sections in the LHC data analysis. The amplitudes involving four gluons as well as those with two gluons plus two quarks do not depend on the compactification details and are completely model-independent. They exhibit resonant behavior at the parton center of mass energies equal to the masses of Regge resonances. The existence of these resonances is the primary signal of string physics and should be easy to detect. On the other hand, the four-fermion processes like quark-antiquark scattering include also the exchanges of heavy Kaluza-Klein and winding states, whose details depend on the form of internal geometry. They could be used as ``precision tests'' in order to distinguish between various compactification scenarios.