Exploring alternative symmetry breaking mechanisms at the LHC with 7, 8 and 10 TeV total energy

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential to detect alternative electroweak symmetry breaking mechanisms at the LHC operating at 7, 8, and 10 TeV, focusing on phenomenological models with unitarized approaches and analyzing their detectability with current and future luminosities.

Contribution

It provides a detailed phenomenological analysis of alternative symmetry breaking models at lower LHC energies using unitarized models and six-fermion final states.

Findings

TeV scale resonances could be detected at 8 TeV with sufficient luminosity.

Models without resonances or with very heavy ones are challenging to observe at these energies.

Detection prospects depend heavily on the available luminosity and resonance mass.

Abstract

In view of the annnouncement that in 2012 the LHC will run at 8 TeV, we study the possibility of detecting signals of alternative mechanisms of ElectroWeak Symmetry Breaking, described phenomenologically by unitarized models, at energies lower than 14 TeV. A complete calculation with six fermions in the final state is performed using the PHANTOM event generator. Our results indicate that at 8 TeV some of the scenarios with TeV scale resonances are likely to be identified while models with no resonances or with very heavy ones will be inaccessible, unless the available luminosity will be much higher than expected.