Dijet resonances, widths and all that

TL;DR

This paper investigates how off-shell effects influence dijet resonance searches at colliders, challenging the common assumption that on-shell production dominates, especially for strongly interacting particles.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of off-shell effects in dijet resonance searches, highlighting potential limitations of current on-shell based strategies.

Findings

Off-shell effects can significantly alter resonance signals.

Current search strategies may underestimate the impact of off-shell contributions.

Implications for future collider searches and model interpretations.

Abstract

The search for heavy resonances in the dijet channel is part of the on-going physics programme, both at the Tevatron and at the LHC. Lower limits have been placed on the masses of dijet resonances predicted in a wide variety of models. However, across experiments, the search strategy assumes that the effect of the new particles is well-approximated by on-shell production and subsequent decay into a pair of jets. We examine the impact of off-shell effects on such searches, particularly for strongly interacting resonances.