Photon Cascade Decay of the Warped Graviton at LHC14 and a 100 TeV Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper explores a novel photon cascade decay channel of warped KK gravitons at high-energy colliders, proposing a method to detect and analyze these decays to probe extra-dimensional models and extract geometric parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a new decay channel involving photon cascades for warped KK gravitons, enhancing detection prospects and providing a way to study underlying geometric parameters.

Findings

Potential to detect KK graviton up to 1.5 TeV at LHC14

Extended reach to about 4 TeV at a 100 TeV collider

Invariant mass distribution skewness due to energy-dependent coupling

Abstract

In warped 5D models of hierarchy and flavor, the first Kaluza-Klein (KK) state of the graviton $G_1$ is heavy enough to decay into a photon and its first KK mode $\gamma_1$ on-shell: $G_1 \to \gamma_1 \gamma$. The volume-suppression of the rate for this process [relative to 2-body decay into heavy Standard Model (SM) final states ($W/Z/t/H$)] may be partially compensated by the simplicity of the photon final state. We consider $\gamma_1 \to W^+W^-$, with a typical O(1) branching fraction, and focus on the semi-leptonic final state $W(\to jj) W(\to \ell, \nu)$ with $\ell=e,\mu$. The SM background originates from $2\to 3$ parton processes and is relatively suppressed compared to those for 2-body decays of $G_1$. Moreover, to further reduce the background, we can impose an invariant mass window cut for $\gamma_1$ (in addition to that for $G_1$) in this new channel. We emphasize that this "photon cascade" decay probes a different combination of (bulk and brane) interactions of the KK states than the decays into two heavy SM states. Thus, in combination with other channels, the cascade decay could be used to extract the individual underlying geometric parameters. The $3\sigma$ reach for $G_1$ in our channel is up to 1.5 TeV at the high luminosity (14 TeV) LHC, and can be extended to about 4 TeV, at $5\sigma$, at a future 100 TeV hadron collider. Along the way, we point out the novel feature that the invariant mass distribution of KK graviton decay products becomes skewed from the Breit-Wigner form, due to the KK graviton coupling growing with energy.