Real and virtual photons effects in di-lepton production at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the impact of real and virtual photon interactions on di-lepton production at the LHC, highlighting their significance in high invariant mass regions and implications for BSM Z'-boson searches.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed Standard Model prediction including photon-initiated processes for di-lepton production at the LHC.

Findings

Photon interactions significantly affect di-lepton production at high invariant masses.

Including photon processes alters the background estimates for Z'-boson searches.

Results impact future BSM search strategies at the LHC.

Abstract

We show the SM prediction of di-lepton production at the LHC where to the usual Drell-Yan production we add the contribution from Photon-Initiated processes. We discuss the effects of the inclusion of photon interactions in the high invariant mass region (TeV region) and their consequences on BSM heavy Z'-boson searches.