NLO predictions for the production of a spin-two particle at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper provides next-to-leading order QCD predictions for the production of a generic spin-two particle at the LHC across various channels, including total and differential cross sections, with an emphasis on the impact of NLO corrections and non-universal couplings.

Contribution

It delivers the first comprehensive NLO QCD predictions for spin-two particle production in multiple channels, including non-universal couplings, with publicly available implementation in MadGraph5_aMC@NLO.

Findings

NLO corrections significantly increase cross sections in many channels.

Non-universal couplings can lead to unitarity-violating behaviors.

Theoretical uncertainties are greatly reduced at NLO.

Abstract

We obtain predictions accurate at the next-to-leading order in QCD for the production of a generic spin-two particle in the most relevant channels at the LHC: production in association with coloured particles (inclusive, one jet, two jets and $t\bar t$), with vector bosons ($Z,W^\pm,\gamma$) and with the Higgs boson. We present total and differential cross sections as well as branching ratios as a function of the mass and the collision energy also considering the case of non-universal couplings to standard model particles. We find that the next-to-leading order corrections give rise to sizeable $K$ factors for many channels, in some cases exposing the unitarity-violating behaviour of non-universal couplings scenarios, and in general greatly reduce the theoretical uncertainties. Our predictions are publicly available in the MadGraph5\_aMC@NLO framework and can, therefore, be directly used in experimental simulations of spin-two particle production for arbitrary values of the mass and couplings.