Search for Anomalous Production of Events with a Photon, Jet, b-quark Jet, and Missing Transverse Energy

TL;DR

This study searches for unusual events with a photon, b-jet, jet, and missing energy in proton-antiproton collisions, finding results consistent with standard model predictions and thus no evidence of new physics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive signature-based analysis of rare event topologies involving photons and b-jets at the Tevatron, with detailed background estimation.

Findings

Observed event counts are consistent with standard model expectations.

No significant excess indicating new physics was found.

The analysis sets constraints on models predicting such signatures.

Abstract

We present a signature-based search for anomalous production of events containing a photon, two jets, of which at least one is identified as originating from a b quark, and missing transverse energy. The search uses data corresponding to 2.0/fb of integrated luminosity from p-pbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV, collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. From 6,697,466 events with a photon candidate with transverse energy ET> 25 GeV, we find 617 events with missing transverse energy > 25 GeV and two or more jets with ET> 15 GeV, at least one identified as originating from a b quark, versus an expectation of 607+- 113 events. Increasing the requirement on missing transverse energy to 50 GeV, we find 28 events versus an expectation of 30+-11 events. We find no indications of non-standard-model phenomena.