ATLAS search for a heavy gauge boson decaying to a charged lepton and a neutrino in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports on the ATLAS experiment's search for heavy gauge bosons decaying into a lepton and neutrino at 7 TeV, setting mass exclusion limits up to around 2.5 TeV.

Contribution

First search at 7 TeV for W' and W* bosons decaying to leptons and neutrinos, establishing new mass exclusion limits.

Findings

No excess observed beyond Standard Model predictions.

W' bosons with masses up to 2.55 TeV are excluded.

W* bosons with masses up to 2.42 TeV are excluded.

Abstract

The ATLAS detector at the LHC is used to search for high-mass states, such as heavy charged gauge bosons (W'), decaying to a charged lepton (electron or muon) and a neutrino. Results are presented based on the analysis of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb-1. No excess beyond Standard Model expectations is observed. A W' with Sequential Standard Model couplings is excluded at the 95% credibility level for masses up to 2.55 TeV. Excited chiral bosons (W*) with equivalent coupling strength are excluded for masses up to 2.42 TeV.