Model Discrimination at the LHC: a Case Study

TL;DR

This study assesses the CMS detector's ability at the LHC to distinguish between minimal supersymmetry and Little Higgs models by analyzing jet distributions in a simplified scenario with heavy exotic particles.

Contribution

It demonstrates that angular and momentum distributions of jets can effectively discriminate between two theoretical models with limited LHC data, given reliable Monte Carlo predictions.

Findings

Jet distributions can differentiate models with a few inverse fb of data.

Discrimination depends on accurate Monte Carlo predictions of signals and backgrounds.

A simple test case scenario is sufficient for model discrimination.

Abstract

We investigate the potential of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to discriminate between two theoretical models predicting anomalous events with jets and large missing transverse energy, minimal supersymmetry and Little Higgs with T Parity. We focus on a simple test case scenario, in which the only exotic particles produced at the LHC are heavy color-triplet states (squarks or T-quarks), and the only open decay channel for these particles is into the stable missing-energy particle (neutralino or heavy photon) plus a quark. We find that in this scenario, the angular and momentum distributions of the observed jets are sufficient to discriminate between the two models with a few inverse fb of the LHC data, provided that these distributions for both models and the dominant Standard Model backgrounds can be reliably predicted by Monte Carlo simulations.