Comments on the diphoton excess: critical reappraisal of effective field theory interpretations

We consider the diphoton excess observed by ATLAS and CMS using the most up-to-date data and estimate the preferred enhancement in the production rate between 8 TeV and 13 TeV. Within the framework of effective field theory (EFT), we then show that for both spin-0 and spin-2 Standard Model (SM) gaug...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kamenik, Jernej F., Safdi, Benjamin Ryan, Soreq, Yotam, Zupan, Jure
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/103884
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9531-1319
Description
Summary:We consider the diphoton excess observed by ATLAS and CMS using the most up-to-date data and estimate the preferred enhancement in the production rate between 8 TeV and 13 TeV. Within the framework of effective field theory (EFT), we then show that for both spin-0 and spin-2 Standard Model (SM) gauge-singlet resonances, two of the three processes S --> ZZ, S --> Zγ, and S --> W W must occur with a non-zero rate. Moreover, we demonstrate that these branching ratios are highly correlated in the EFT. Couplings of S to additional SM states may be constrained and differentiated by comparing the S production rates with and without the vector-boson fusion (VBF) cuts. We find that for a given VBF to inclusive production ratio there is maximum rate of S to gauge bosons, bb[overbar], and lighter quark anti-quark pairs. Simultaneous measurements of the width and the VBF ratio may be able to point towards the existence of hidden decays.