Perturbative benchmark models for a dark shower search program

TL;DR

This paper introduces five benchmark models for dark shower searches using perturbative parton showers, providing tools and parameters to facilitate experimental analysis of hidden valley scenarios.

Contribution

The paper presents novel benchmark models with perturbative dark showers, including a public tool for generating simulation configurations, enhancing experimental search strategies.

Findings

Five benchmark dark shower models covering diverse phenomenology

A public Python tool for generating PYTHIA 8 simulation cards

Constraints on dark meson decay properties and lifetimes

Abstract

We provide five benchmark hidden valley models with perturbative parton showers, which span a wide range of dark shower phenomenology. We consider production through an $s$-channel, heavy mediator, which can be identified with the SM Higgs. By assuming a set of well-motivated decay portals, one can moreover fix both the branching ratios of the dark mesons and set a lower bound on their lifetime. We provide a public python tool which can be used to generate self-consistent PYTHIA 8 cards for our benchmark models.