Doubly-charged particles at the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper explores the production, signatures, and distinguishability of doubly-charged exotic particles at the LHC, considering various spins and SU(2)L representations, to guide future experimental searches.

Contribution

It classifies doubly-charged particles by spin and SU(2)L representation, and analyzes their interactions, production, decay, and detection prospects at the LHC.

Findings

Doubly-charged particles can be produced via multiple channels at the LHC.

Distinct signatures depend on the particles' spin and SU(2)L representation.

Strategies to distinguish different doubly-charged states are proposed.

Abstract

In this work we investigate the production and signatures of doubly-charged particles at the Large Hadron Collider. We start with the Standard Model particle content and representations and add generic doubly-charged exotic particles. We classify these doubly-charged states according to their spin, considering scalar, fermionic and vectorial fields, and according to their SU(2)L representation, being chosen to be either trivial, fundamental, or adjoint. We write the most general interactions between them and the Standard Model sector and study their production modes and possible decay channels. We then probe how they can most likely be observed and how particles with different spin and SU(2)L representations could be possibly distinguished.