A Search for Leptoquarks at HERA

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for leptoquarks at HERA using 1994 data, finding no evidence but setting new exclusion limits on their masses and couplings across different generations and types.

Contribution

First direct search for leptoquarks at HERA with improved exclusion limits, especially for lepton flavor violating couplings, using 1994 $e^+ p$ data.

Findings

Excluded leptoquark masses up to 275 GeV for certain couplings.

Excluded leptoquark masses up to 225 GeV for flavor-violating couplings.

Set new limits surpassing previous direct and indirect constraints.

Abstract

A search for leptoquarks at HERA was performed in H1 using 1994 $e^+ p$ data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about $3 \pb^{-1}$. Single leptoquarks were searched for in direct positron-quark fusion processes taking into account possible decays into lepton-quark pairs of either the first, the second, or the third generation. No significant deviation from the Standard Model predictions is found in the various final states studied and mass dependent exclusion limits are derived on the Yukawa couplings of the leptoquarks. Compared with earlier results from an analysis of $e^-p$ data, exclusion limits are considerably improved for leptoquarks which could be produced via $e^+$-{\it valence~quark} fusion. For leptoquarks with lepton flavour conserving couplings, masses up to $275 \GeV$ (depending on the leptoquark type) are excluded for coupling values larger than $\sqrt{ 4 \pi \alpha_{em}}$. For leptoquarks with lepton flavour violating couplings, masses up to $225 \GeV$ are excluded for the first time in a direct search for couplings with leptons of the second or third generation larger than $\sqrt{ 4 \pi \alpha_{em}}$. Fourteen possible combinations of couplings are studied and stringent exclusion limits comparable or better than any existing direct or indirect limits are obtained for each leptoquark type.