Separating Dijet Resonances Using the Color Discriminant Variable

TL;DR

This paper extends a method to distinguish between different types of dijet resonances at the LHC, using measurements of decay properties, to include flavor non-universal couplings and differentiate from scalars and excited quarks.

Contribution

It introduces an extended method for separating color-singlet and octet resonances, accounting for flavor non-universality and scalar/excited quark distinctions.

Findings

Effective discrimination between resonance types using decay measurements.

Method applicable to flavor non-universal couplings.

Distinguishes vector bosons from scalars and excited quarks.

Abstract

Color-singlet and color-octet vector bosons predicted in theories beyond the Standard Model have the potential to be discovered as dijet resonances at the LHC. A color-singlet resonance that has leptophobic couplings needs further investigation to be distinguished from a color-octet one. In previous work, we introduced a method for discriminating between the two kinds of resonances when their couplings are flavor-universal, using measurements of the dijet resonance mass, total decay width and production cross-section. Here, we describe two extensions of that work. First, we broaden the method to the case where the vector resonances have flavor non-universal couplings, by incorporating measurements of the heavy-flavor decays of the resonance. Second, we apply the method to separating vector bosons from color-octet scalars and excited quarks.