A Bottom Line for the LHC Data by Leveraging Pileup as a Zero Bias Trigger

TL;DR

This paper proposes using pileup interactions at the LHC as a zero bias trigger to capture a broad range of physics events, including potential BSM signals, enabling a bottom line cross-section limit after high-luminosity runs.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of leveraging pileup as a zero bias trigger to improve event collection for unknown or future BSM models at the LHC.

Findings

Zero bias dataset can provide about 1/fb of data post-HL-LHC.

A cross-section limit of approximately 1 fb can be set for BSM models.

Method enhances sensitivity to models not covered by traditional triggers.

Abstract

Due to a limited bandwidth and a large proton-proton interaction cross-section relative to the rate of interesting physics processes, most events produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are discarded in real time. A sophisticated trigger system must quickly decide which events should be kept and is very efficient for a broad range of processes. However, there are many processes that cannot be accommodated by this trigger system. Furthermore, there may be models of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) constructed after data taking that could have been triggered, but no trigger was implemented at run time. Both of these cases can be covered by exploiting pileup interactions as an effective zero bias sample. At the end of High-Luminosity LHC operations, this zero bias dataset will have accumulated about 1/fb of data from which a bottom line cross-section limit of O(1) fb can be set for BSM models already in the literature and those yet to come.