Hadronically decaying color-adjoint scalars at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production and detection of color-adjoint scalar particles at the LHC, comparing standard QCD pair-production with a vectorlike confinement scenario involving additional vector states.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of scalar color-octet production mechanisms, including a novel approach to distinguish between QCD and vectorlike confinement scenarios.

Findings

Scalar color-octet states can be produced abundantly at the LHC.

Distinctive signatures allow differentiation between production hypotheses.

Strategies for experimental identification of underlying production mechanisms.

Abstract

We study the phenomenology of the pair-production of scalar color-octet electroweak singlet states at the LHC. Such states appear in many extensions of the Standard Model. They can be pair-produced copiously at the LHC and will signal themselves as resonances in multijet final states. Beyond the QCD pair-production process we consider a vectorlike confinement scenario with an additional color-octet vector state. These vector particles can be produced in the s-channel and through their decay contribute to the scalar pair production. We point out the differences between the two hypotheses and device a strategy to distinguish them.