Signals of Two Universal Extra Dimensions at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper explores the LHC phenomenology of theories with two universal extra dimensions, analyzing current bounds and future discovery potential through novel decay channels and resonance signals.

Contribution

It introduces a new single production channel of second level quark excitations via higher dimensional operators, enhancing detection prospects.

Findings

Current bounds set by second level electroweak gauge boson production.

LHC Run II can probe compactification scales similar to vector resonance searches.

The new quark excitation channel offers a more model-specific signature.

Abstract

Extensions of the standard model with universal extra dimensions are interesting both as phenomenological templates as well as model-building fertile ground. For instance, they are one the prototypes for theories exhibiting compressed spectra, leading to difficult searches at the LHC since the decay products of new states are soft and immersed in a large standard model background. Here we study the phenomenology at the LHC of theories with two universal extra dimensions. We obtain the current bound by using the production of second level excitations of electroweak gauge bosons decaying to a pair of leptons and study the reach of the LHC Run~II in this channel. We also introduce a new channel originating in higher dimensional operators and resulting in the single production of a second level quark excitation. Its subsequent decay into a hard jet and lepton pair resonance would allow the identification of a more model-specific process, unlike the more generic vector resonance signal. We show that the sensitivity of this channel to the compactification scale is very similar to the one obtained using the vector resonance.