Studies of Dimension-Six EFT effects in Vector Boson Scattering

TL;DR

This paper investigates the role of dimension-six operators in vector boson scattering at the LHC, emphasizing their importance over higher-dimensional operators and their impact on experimental interpretations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that dimension-six operators significantly influence VBS processes and should be included in analyses, challenging the focus on dimension-eight operators.

Findings

Dimension-six operators affect VBS rates and shapes.

VBS is sensitive to operators constrained by LEP and Higgs data.

Including all relevant operators is essential for correct experimental interpretation.

Abstract

We discuss the implications of dimension-six operators of the Effective Field Theory (EFT) framework in the study of Vector Boson Scattering (VBS) in the $pp \to Z Z j j $ channel. We show that operators of dimension-six should not be neglected in favour of those of dimension-eight. We observe that this process is very sensitive to some of the operators commonly fit using LEP and Higgs data, and that it can be used to improve the bounds on the former. Further we show that other operators than the ones generating anomalous triple and quartic gauge couplings (aTGCs/aQCGs) can have a non-negligible impact on the total and differential rates and their shapes. For this reason, a correct interpretation of the experimental results can only be achieved by including all the relevant, bosonic and fermionic operators; we finally discuss how such an interpretation of experimental measurements can be done.