A New Method for the Spin Determination of Dark Matter

Abstract

We construct a new kinematical variable that is able to fully reconstruct the absolute value, and partially reconstruct the sign, of the angular distribution in the center of momentum system of a decaying particle in certain cases where the center of momentum system is only known up to a two-fold ambiguity. After making contact with Drell-Yan production at the Large Hadron Collider, we apply this method to the pair-production of dark matter in association with two charged leptons at the International Linear Collider and show that for a small intermediate width, perfect agreement is found with the true angular distribution in the absence of initial state radiation. In the presence of initial state radiation, we find that the modification to the angular distributions is small for most angles and that the different spin combinations should still be distinguishable. This enables us to determine the spin of the mother particle and the dark matter particle in certain cases.