New Physics Signals in Longitudinal Gauge Boson Scattering at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper presents a new method to detect signs of physics beyond the Standard Model by analyzing the polarization ratios of vector bosons in high-energy collisions at the LHC, which can reveal non-SM interactions.

Contribution

The authors introduce a polarization-based technique to identify new physics signatures in vector boson fusion, improving robustness over traditional cross section measurements.

Findings

Technique effectively distinguishes non-SM interactions.

Method remains stable under scale uncertainties.

Applicable to models with a light Higgs and TeV-scale new physics.

Abstract

We introduce a novel technique designed to look for signatures of new physics in vector boson fusion processes at the TeV scale. This functions by measuring the polarization of the vector bosons to determine the relative longitudinal to transverse production. In studying this ratio we can directly probe the high energy E^2-growth of longitudinal vector boson scattering amplitudes characteristic of models with non-Standard Model (SM) interactions. We will focus on studying models parameterized by an effective Lagrangian that include a light Higgs with non-SM couplings arising from TeV scale new physics associated with the electroweak symmetry breaking, although our technique can be used in more general scenarios. We will show that this technique is stable against the large uncertainties that can result from variations in the factorization scale, improving upon previous studies that measure cross section alone.