arXiv subjects

Ahmed Ismail

Publications and source records attributed to Ahmed Ismail.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Probing Light Dark Matter with a Hadrophilic Scalar Mediator

We investigate the thermal cosmology and terrestrial and astrophysical phenomenology of a sub-GeV hadrophilic dark sector. The specific construction explored in this work features a Dirac fermion dark matter candidate interacting with a light scalar mediator that dominantly couples to the up-quark. The correct freeze-out relic abundance may be achieved via dark matter annihilation directly to hadrons or through secluded annihilation to scalar mediators. A rich and distinctive phenomenology is present in this scenario, with probes arising from precision meson decays, proton beam dump experiments, colliders, direct detection experiments, supernovae, and nucleosynthesis. In the future, experiments such as NA62, REDTOP, SHiP, SBND, and NEWS-G will be able to explore a significant portion of the cosmologically motivated parameter space.

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arXiv2018

SMEFT Corrections to $Z$ Boson Decays

We compute the one-loop corrections to $Z$ decay properties from dimension-6 operators in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) that contribute also to anomalous 3-gauge boson couplings and examine the relative sensitivity of the two processes to the anomalous couplings. The size of the contributions is of order a few percent, of the same size as Standard Model electroweak corrections. This is part of a program of computing electroweak quantities to one-loop in the SMEFT: these calculations are needed for a future global fit to limit the coefficients of the dimension-six Wilson coefficients consistently at one loop.

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arXiv2018

Flavor-specific scalar mediators

New singlet scalar bosons have broad phenomenological utility and feature prominently in many extensions of the Standard Model. Such scalars are often taken to have Higgs-like couplings to SM fermions in order to evade stringent flavor bounds, e.g. by assuming Minimal Flavor Violation (MFV), which leads to a rather characteristic phenomenology. Here we describe an alternative approach, based on an effective field theory framework for a new scalar that dominantly couples to one specific SM fermion mass eigenstate. A simple flavor hypothesis ensures adequate suppression of new flavor changing neutral currents. We consider radiatively generated flavor changing neutral currents and scalar potential terms in such theories, demonstrating that they are often suppressed by small Yukawa couplings, and also describe the role of $CP$ symmetry. We further demonstrate that such scalars can have masses that are significantly below the electroweak scale while still being natural, provided they are sufficiently weakly coupled to ordinary matter. In comparison to other flavor scenarios, our framework is rather versatile since a single (or a few) desired scalar couplings may be investigated in isolation. We illustrate this by discussing in detail the examples of an up-specific scalar mediator to dark matter and a muon-specific scalar that may address the $\sim 3 σ$ muon anomalous magnetic moment discrepancy.

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arXiv2018

Anomalous $Z'$ and Diboson Resonances at the LHC

We propose novel collider searches which can significantly improve the LHC reach to new gauge bosons $Z'$ with mixed anomalies with the electroweak (EW) gauge group. Such a $Z'$ necessarily acquires a Chern-Simons coupling to the EW gauge bosons and these couplings can drive both exotic $Z$ decays into $Z'γ$ if the new gauge boson is sufficiently light, as well as $Z'$ decays into EW gauge bosons.While the exotic decay rate of the heavy $Z$ into $Z'γ$ is too small to be observed at the LHC, for a light $Z'$, we show the potential of a lepton jet search in association with a photon to probe the rare decay $Z \to Z' γ$.

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arXiv2017

On Dark Matter Interactions with the Standard Model through an Anomalous $Z'$

We study electroweak scale Dark Matter (DM) whose interactions with baryonic matter are mediated by a heavy anomalous $Z'$. We emphasize that when the DM is a Majorana particle, its low-velocity annihilations are dominated by loop suppressed annihilations into the gauge bosons, rather than by p-wave or chirally suppressed annihilations into the SM fermions. Because the $Z'$ is anomalous, these kinds of DM models can be realized only as effective field theories (EFTs) with a well-defined cutoff, where heavy spectator fermions restore gauge invariance at high energies. We formulate these EFTs, estimate their cutoff and properly take into account the effect of the Chern-Simons terms one obtains after the spectator fermions are integrated out. We find that, while for light DM collider and direct detection experiments usually provide the strongest bounds, the bounds at higher masses are heavily dominated by indirect detection experiments, due to strong annihilation into $W^+W^-$, $ZZ$, $Zγ$ and possibly into $gg$ and $γγ$. We emphasize that these annihilation channels are generically significant because of the structure of the EFT, and therefore these models are prone to strong indirect detection constraints. Even though we focus on selected $Z'$ models for illustrative purposes, our setup is completely generic and can be used for analyzing the predictions of any anomalous $Z'$-mediated DM model with arbitrary charges.

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arXiv2017

Axial Vector $Z'$ and Anomaly Cancellation

Whilst the prospect of new $Z'$ gauge bosons with only axial couplings to the Standard Model (SM) fermions is widely discussed, examples of anomaly-free renormalisable models are lacking in the literature. We look to remedy this by constructing several motivated examples. Specifically, we consider axial vectors which couple universally to all SM fermions, as well as those which are generation-specific, leptophilic, and leptophobic. Anomaly cancellation typically requires the presence of new coloured and charged chiral fermions, and we argue that in a large class of models masses of these new states are expected to be comparable to that of the axial vector. Finally, an axial vector mediator could provide a portal between SM and hidden sector states, and we also consider the possibility that the axial vector couples to dark matter. If the dark matter relic density is set due to freeze-out via the axial vector, this strongly constrains the parameter space.

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arXiv2016

A Second Peak in Diphoton (or Diboson) Resonances

Many new physics models contain a neutral scalar resonance that can be predominantly produced via gluon fusion through loops. In such a case, there could be important effects of additional particles, that in turn may hadronize before decaying and form bound states. This interesting possibility may lead to novel signatures with double peaks that can be searched for at the LHC. We study the phenomenology of double peak searches in diboson final states from loop induced production and decay of a new neutral spin-0 resonance at the LHC. The loop-induced couplings should be mediated by particles carrying color and electroweak charge that after forming bound states will induce a second peak in the diboson invariant mass spectrum near twice their mass. A second peak could be present via loop-induced couplings into $gg$ (dijet), $γγ$ and $Zγ$ final states as well as in the $WW$ and $ZZ$ channels for the case of a pseudo-scalar resonance or for scalars with suppressed tree-level coupling to gauge bosons.

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arXiv2016

Illuminating New Electroweak States at Hadron Colliders

In this paper, we propose a novel powerful strategy to perform searches for new electroweak states. Uncolored electroweak states appear in generic extensions of the Standard Model (SM) and yet are challenging to discover at hadron colliders. This problem is particularly acute when the lightest state in the electroweak multiplet is neutral and all multiplet components are approximately degenerate. In this scenario, production of the charged fields of the multiplet is followed by decay into nearly invisible states; if this decay occurs promptly, the only way to infer the presence of the reaction is through its missing energy signature. Our proposal relies on emission of photon radiation from the new charged states as a means of discriminating the signal from SM backgrounds. We demonstrate its broad applicability by studying two examples: a pure Higgsino doublet and an electroweak quintuplet field.

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arXiv2016

The CP-Violating pMSSM

We investigate the sensitivity of the next generation of flavor-based low-energy experiments to probe the supersymmetric parameter space in the context of the phenomenological MSSM (pMSSM), and examine the complementarity with direct searches for Supersymmetry at the 13 TeV LHC in a quantitative manner. To this end, we enlarge the previously studied pMSSM parameter space to include all physical non-zero CP-violating phases, namely those associated with the gaugino mass parameters, Higgsino mass parameter, and the tri-linear couplings of the top quark, bottom quark and tau lepton. We find that future electric dipole moment and flavor measurements can have a strong impact on the viability of these models even if the sparticle spectrum is out of reach of the 13 TeV LHC. In particular, the lack of positive signals in future low-energy probes would exclude values of the phases between ${\cal O}(10^{-2})$ and ${\cal O}(10^{-1})$. We also find regions of parameter space where large phases remain allowed due to cancellations. Most interestingly, in some rare processes, such as BR($B_s \to μ^+ μ^-$ ), we find that contributions arising from CP-violating phases can bring the potentially large SUSY contributions into better agreement with experiment and Standard Model predictions.

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arXiv2015

Same-Sign Dilepton Excesses and Light Top Squarks

Run 1 data of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) contain excessive events in the same-sign dilepton channel with b-jets and missing transverse energy (MET), which were observed by five separate analyses from ATLAS and CMS collaborations. We show that these events could be explained by direct production of top squarks (stops) in supersymmetry. In particular, a right-handed stop with a mass of 550 GeV decaying into 2 t quarks, 2 W bosons, and MET could fit the observed excess without being constrained by other direct search limits from Run 1. We propose kinematic cuts at 13 TeV to enhance the stop signal, and estimate that stops could be discovered with 40 inverse fb of integrated luminosity at Run 2 of the LHC, when considering only the statistical uncertainty.

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arXiv2015

Dark Matter in the Coming Decade: Complementary Paths to Discovery and Beyond

In this report we summarize the many dark matter searches currently being pursued through four complementary approaches: direct detection, indirect detection, collider experiments, and astrophysical probes. The essential features of broad classes of experiments are described, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The complementarity of the different dark matter searches is discussed qualitatively and illustrated quantitatively in two simple theoretical frameworks. Our primary conclusion is that the diversity of possible dark matter candidates requires a balanced program drawing from all four approaches.

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arXiv2014

Deconstructed Transverse Mass Variables

Traditional searches for R-parity conserving natural supersymmetry (SUSY) require large transverse mass and missing energy cuts to separate the signal from large backgrounds. SUSY models with compressed spectra inherently produce signal events with small amounts of missing energy that are hard to explore. We use this difficulty to motivate the construction of "deconstructed" transverse mass variables which are designed preserve information on both the norm and direction of the missing momentum. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these variables in searches for the pair production of supersymmetric top-quark partners which subsequently decay into a final state with an isolated lepton, jets and missing energy. We show that the use of deconstructed transverse mass variables extends the accessible compressed spectra parameter space beyond the region probed by traditional methods. The parameter space can further be expanded to neutralino masses that are larger than the difference between the stop and top masses. In addition, we also discuss how these variables allow for novel searches of single stop production, in order to directly probe unconstrained stealth stops in the small stop- and neutralino-mass regime. We also demonstrate the utility of these variables for generic gluino and stop searches in all-hadronic final states. Overall, we demonstrate that deconstructed transverse variables are essential to any search wanting to maximize signal separation from the background when the signal has undetected particles in the final state.

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arXiv2014

Complementarity of Dark Matter Searches in the pMSSM

As is well known, the search for and eventual identification of dark matter in supersymmetry requires a simultaneous, multi-pronged approach with important roles played by the LHC as well as both direct and indirect dark matter detection experiments. We examine the capabilities of these approaches in the 19-parameter p(henomenological)MSSM which provides a general framework for complementarity studies of neutralino dark matter. We summarize the sensitivity of dark matter searches at the 7, 8 (and eventually 14) TeV LHC, combined with those by \Fermi, CTA, IceCube/DeepCore, COUPP, LZ and XENON. The strengths and weaknesses of each of these techniques are examined and contrasted and their interdependent roles in covering the model parameter space are discussed in detail. We find that these approaches explore orthogonal territory and that advances in each are necessary to cover the Supersymmetric WIMP parameter space. We also find that different experiments have widely varying sensitivities to the various dark matter annihilation mechanisms, some of which would be completely excluded by null results from these experiments.

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arXiv2013

Dark Matter in the Coming Decade: Complementary Paths to Discovery and Beyond

In this Report we discuss the four complementary searches for the identity of dark matter: direct detection experiments that look for dark matter interacting in the lab, indirect detection experiments that connect lab signals to dark matter in our own and other galaxies, collider experiments that elucidate the particle properties of dark matter, and astrophysical probes sensitive to non-gravitational interactions of dark matter. The complementarity among the different dark matter searches is discussed qualitatively and illustrated quantitatively in several theoretical scenarios. Our primary conclusion is that the diversity of possible dark matter candidates requires a balanced program based on all four of those approaches.

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arXiv2013

Constraints on Higgs Properties and SUSY Partners in the pMSSM

Direct searches for superpartners and precision measurements of the properties of the $\sim 126$ GeV Higgs boson lead to important inter-dependent constraints on the underlying parameter space of the MSSM. The 19/20-parameter p(henomenological)MSSM offers a flexible framework for the study of a wide variety of both Higgs and SUSY phenomena at the LHC and elsewhere. Within this scenario we address the following questions: `What will potentially null searches for SUSY at the LHC tell us about the possible properties of the Higgs boson?' and, conversely, `What do precision measurements of the properties of the Higgs tell us about the possible properties of the various superpartners?' Clearly the answers to such questions will be functions of both the collision energy of the LHC as well as the accumulated integrated luminosity. We address these questions employing several sets of pMSSM models having either neutralino or gravitino LSPs, making use of the ATLAS SUSY analyses at the 7/8 TeV LHC as well as planned SUSY and Higgs analyses at the 14 TeV LHC and the ILC. Except for theoretical uncertainties that remain to be accounted for in the ratios of SUSY and SM couplings, we demonstrate that Higgs coupling measurements at the 14 TeV LHC, and particularly at the 500 GeV ILC, will be sensitive to regions of the pMSSM model space that are not accessible to direct SUSY searches.

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arXiv2013

The CP-violating pMSSM at the Intensity Frontier

In this Snowmass whitepaper, we describe the impact of ongoing and proposed intensity frontier experiments on the parameter space of the Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We extend a set of phenomenological MSSM (pMSSM) models to include non-zero CP-violating phases and study the sensitivity of various flavor observables in these scenarios Future electric dipole moment and rare meson decay experiments can have a strong impact on the viability of these models that is relatively independent of the detailed superpartner spectrum. In particular, we find that these experiments have the potential to probe models that are expected to escape searches at the high-luminosity LHC.

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arXiv2013

pMSSM Benchmark Models for Snowmass 2013

We present several benchmark points in the phenomenological Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (pMSSM). We select these models as experimentally well-motivated examples of the MSSM which predict the observed Higgs mass and dark matter relic density while evading the current LHC searches. We also use benchmarks to generate spokes in parameter space by scaling the mass parameters in a manner which keeps the Higgs mass and relic density approximately constant.

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arXiv2013

More Energy, More Searches, but the pMSSM Lives On

We further examine the capability of the 7 and 8 TeV LHC to explore the parameter space of the p(henomenological)MSSM with neutralino LSPs. Here we present an updated study employing all of the relevant ATLAS SUSY analyses, as well as all relevant LHC non-MET searches, whose data were publically available as of mid-September 2012. We find that roughly 1/3 of our pMSSM model points are excluded at present with an important role being played by both the heavy flavor and multi-lepton searches, as well as those for heavy stable charged particles. Nonetheless, we find that light gluinos, 1st/2nd generation squarks, and stop/sbottoms (\lsim 400-700 GeV), as well as models with 1% fine-tuning or better, are still viable in the pMSSM. In addition, we see that increased luminosity at 8 TeV is unlikely to significantly improve the reach of the "vanilla" searches. The impact of these null searches on the SUSY sparticle spectrum is discussed in detail and the implications of these results for models with low fine-tuning, a future lepton collider and dark matter searches are examined.

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