Single Productions of Colored Particles at the LHC: An Example with Scalar Leptoquarks

TL;DR

This paper explores the importance of including single production channels of colored particles, specifically scalar leptoquarks, in LHC searches to improve parameter constraints and exclusion limits.

Contribution

It demonstrates how incorporating single production processes can enhance the analysis of scalar leptoquark searches at the LHC, challenging the common assumption of their negligibility.

Findings

Single production can significantly affect mass exclusion limits.

Including single production provides better bounds on leptoquark couplings.

Systematic inclusion alters the interpretation of LHC search results.

Abstract

Current LHC searches for new colored particles generally focus on their pair production channels and assume any single production to be negligible. We argue that such an assumption may be unnecessary in some cases. Inclusion of model dependent single productions in pair production searches (or vice versa) can give us new information about model parameters or better exclusion limits. Considering the example of the recent CMS search for first generation scalar leptoquarks in the pair production channel, we illustrate how single productions can be systematically included in the signal estimations and demonstrate how it can affect the mass exclusion limits and give new bounds on leptoquark-lepton-quark couplings. We also estimate the effect of the pair production in the more recent CMS search for scalar leptoquarks in single production channels.