Searching for New Physics Inside Jets with the Herwig 7 Generalised Parton Shower

TL;DR

This paper explores how the Herwig 7 framework can simulate BSM $Z'$ boson production within jets via parton shower evolution, revealing new signatures for collider searches.

Contribution

It introduces a Herwig 7 extension supporting BSM radiation, enabling simulation of $Z'$ production inside jets and identifying novel experimental signatures.

Findings

$Z'$ bosons can be produced inside jets via shower emissions.

BSM radiation signatures differ from SM backgrounds.

Potential for new physics searches in non-isolated jet regions.

Abstract

This study investigates parton shower evolution incorporating both Standard Model (SM) and beyond-the-Standard-Model (BSM) radiation, focusing on the phenomenology of a massive $Z'$ boson. While traditional approaches typically assume direct $Z'$ production in the hard process, the possibility of $Z'$ production within jets, enabled by subsequent emissions in the parton shower, offers a complementary opportunity to probe new physics through jet substructure and event topology. The newly developed Herwig 7 framework supporting BSM parton showers enables efficient simulation of $Z'$ production in the logarithmically enhanced regime. Using a simple BSM benchmark, the minimal $U(1)_{B{\rm -}L}$ extension of the SM, the interplay between the SM and BSM showers is evaluated to identify kinematic features that distinguish $Z'$-induced jets from conventional signatures. BSM-radiation signatures are contrasted with SM backgrounds such as QCD, top-quark, and Drell-Yan production, identifying potential discriminants for experimental searches. Experimental sensitivity at the LHC and prospective future colliders is estimated via statistical-significance projections. We find that $Z'$ bosons produced through parton shower radiation populate non-isolated regions inside jets, providing an avenue for new-physics searches overlooked in traditional analyses.