arXiv subjects

Can Kilic

Publications and source records attributed to Can Kilic.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Detecting kinematic boundary surfaces in phase space: particle mass measurements in SUSY-like events

We critically examine the classic endpoint method for particle mass determination, focusing on difficult corners of parameter space, where some of the measurements are not independent, while others are adversely affected by the experimental resolution. In such scenarios, mass differences can be measured relatively well, but the overall mass scale remains poorly constrained. Using the example of the standard SUSY decay chain $\tilde q\to \tildeχ^0_2\to \tilde \ell \to \tilde χ^0_1$, we demonstrate that sensitivity to the remaining mass scale parameter can be recovered by measuring the two-dimensional kinematical boundary in the relevant three-dimensional phase space of invariant masses squared. We develop an algorithm for detecting this boundary, which uses the geometric properties of the Voronoi tessellation of the data, and in particular, the relative standard deviation (RSD) of the volumes of the neighbors for each Voronoi cell in the tessellation. We propose a new observable, $\barΣ$, which is the average RSD per unit area, calculated over the hypothesized boundary. We show that the location of the $\barΣ$ maximum correlates very well with the true values of the new particle masses. Our approach represents the natural extension of the one-dimensional kinematic endpoint method to the relevant three dimensions of invariant mass phase space.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Testing the Scalar Sector of the Twin Higgs Model at Colliders

We consider Mirror Twin Higgs models in which the breaking of the global symmetry is realized linearly. In this scenario, the radial mode in the Higgs potential is present in the spectrum, and constitutes a second portal between the twin and SM sectors. We show that a study of the properties of this particle at colliders, when combined with precision measurements of the light Higgs, can be used to overdetermine the form of the scalar potential, thereby confirming that it possesses an enhanced global symmetry as dictated by the Twin Higgs mechanism. We find that, although the reach of the LHC for this state is limited, future linear colliders will be able to explore a significant part of the preferred parameter space, allowing the possibility of directly testing the Twin Higgs framework.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Identifying Phase Space Boundaries with Voronoi Tessellations

Determining the masses of new physics particles appearing in decay chains is an important and longstanding problem in high energy phenomenology. Recently it has been shown that these mass measurements can be improved by utilizing the boundary of the allowed region in the fully differentiable phase space in its full dimensionality. Here we show that the practical challenge of identifying this boundary can be solved using techniques based on the geometric properties of the cells resulting from Voronoi tessellations of the relevant data. The robust detection of such phase space boundaries in the data could also be used to corroborate a new physics discovery based on a cut-and-count analysis.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Multi-Dimensional Phase Space Methods for Mass Measurements and Decay Topology Determination

Collider events with multi-stage cascade decays fill out the kinematically allowed region in phase space with a density that is enhanced at the boundary. The boundary encodes all available information about the spectrum and is well populated even with moderate signal statistics due to this enhancement. In previous work, the improvement in the precision of mass measurements for cascade decays with three visible and one invisible particles was demonstrated when the full boundary information is used instead of endpoints of one-dimensional projections. We extend these results to cascade decays with four visible and one invisible particles. We also comment on how the topology of the cascade decay can be determined from the differential distribution of events in these scenarios.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Skew-Flavored Dark Matter

We explore a novel flavor structure in the interactions of dark matter with the Standard Model. We consider theories in which both the dark matter candidate, and the particles that mediate its interactions with the Standard Model fields, carry flavor quantum numbers. The interactions are skewed in flavor space, so that a dark matter particle does not directly couple to the Standard Model matter fields of the same flavor, but only to the other two flavors. This framework respects Minimal Flavor Violation, and is therefore naturally consistent with flavor constraints. We study the phenomenology of a benchmark model in which dark matter couples to right-handed charged leptons. In large regions of parameter space the dark matter can emerge as a thermal relic, while remaining consistent with the constraints from direct and indirect detection. The collider signatures of this scenario include events with multiple leptons and missing energy. These events exhibit a characteristic flavor pattern that may allow this class of models to be distinguished from other theories of dark matter.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Secretly Asymmetric Dark Matter

We study a mechanism where the dark matter number density today arises from asymmetries generated in the dark sector in the early universe, even though total dark matter number remains zero throughout the history of the universe. The dark matter population today can be completely symmetric, with annihilation rates above those expected from thermal WIMPs. We give a simple example of this mechanism using a benchmark model of flavored dark matter. We discuss the experimental signatures of this setup, which arise mainly from the sector that annihilates the symmetric component of dark matter.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Shedding Light on Diphoton Resonances

The experimental and theoretical implications of heavy digauge boson resonances that couple to, or are comprised of, new charged and strongly interacting matter are investigated. Observation and measurement of ratios of the resonant digauge boson channels $WW$, $ZZ$, $γγ$, $Z γ$, and $gg$ in the form of dijets, provide a rather direct -- and for some ratios a rather robust -- probe of the gauge representations of the new matter. For a spin-zero resonance with the quantum numbers of the vacuum, the ratios of resonant $WW$ and $ZZ$ to $γγ$ channels, as well as the longitudinal versus transverse polarization fractions in the $WW$ and $ZZ$ channels, provide probes for possible mixing with the Higgs boson, while di-Higgs and ditop resonant channels, $hh$ and $tt$, provide somewhat less sensitivity. We present a survey of possible underlying models for digauge boson resonances by considering various limits for the mass of the new charged and strongly interacting matter fields as well as the confinement scale of new hypergauge interactions under which they may also be charged. In these limits, resonances may be included as elementary weakly coupled spin-zero states or can correspond to hyperglueballs, hyperonia, or pseudoscalar hypermesons. For each of these cases, we make predictions for additional states that could be resonantly or pair produced and observed at the Large Hadron Collider or in future collider experiments. Heavy digauge boson resonances can provide a unified explanation for a number of small discrepancies and excesses in reported data from the Large Hadron Collider.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Can A Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Higgs Lead To Symmetry Non-Restoration?

The calculation of finite temperature contributions to the scalar potential in a quantum field theory is similar to the calculation of loop corrections at zero temperature. In natural extensions of the Standard Model where loop corrections to the Higgs potential cancel between Standard Model degrees of freedom and their symmetry partners, it is interesting to contemplate whether finite temperature corrections also cancel, raising the question of whether a broken phase of electroweak symmetry may persist at high temperature. It is well known that this does not happen in supersymmetric theories because the thermal contributions of bosons and fermions do not cancel each other. However, for theories with same spin partners, the answer is less obvious. Using the Twin Higgs model as a benchmark, we show that although thermal corrections do cancel at the level of quadratic divergences, subleading corrections still drive the system to a restored phase. We further argue that our conclusions generalize to other well-known extensions of the Standard Model where the Higgs is rendered natural by being the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone mode of an approximate global symmetry.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Signatures of Top Flavored Dark Matter

We study the experimental signatures of top flavored dark matter (top FDM) in direct detection searches and at the LHC. We show that for a dark matter mass above 200 GeV, top FDM can be consistent with current bounds from direct detection experiments and relic abundance constraints. We also show that next generation direct detection experiments will be able to exclude the entire perturbative parameter region for top FDM. For regions of parameter space where the flavor partners of top FDM are not readily produced, the LHC signatures of top FDM are similar to those of other models previously studied in the literature. For the case when the flavor partners are produced at the LHC, we study their impact on a search based on transverse mass variables and find that they diminish the signal significance. However, when the DM flavor partners are split in mass by less than 120-130 GeV, the LHC phenomenology becomes very distinctive through the appearance of displaced vertices. We also propose a strategy by which all parameters of the underlying model can be experimentally determined when the flavor partners can be observed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

A Couplet from Flavored Dark Matter

We show that a couplet, a pair of closely spaced photon lines, in the X-ray spectrum is a distinctive feature of lepton flavored dark matter models for which the mass spectrum is dictated by Minimal Flavor Violation. In such a scenario, mass splittings between different dark matter flavors are determined by Standard Model Yukawa couplings and can naturally be small, allowing all three flavors to be long-lived and contribute to the observed abundance. Then, in the presence of a tiny source of flavor violation, heavier dark matter flavors can decay via a dipole transition on cosmological timescales, giving rise to three photon lines. The ratios of the line energies are completely determined in terms of the charged lepton masses, and constitute a firm prediction of this framework. For dark matter masses of order the weak scale, the couplet lies in the keV-MeV region, with a much weaker line in the eV-keV region. This scenario constitutes a potential explanation for the recent claim of the observation of a 3.5 keV line. The next generation of X-ray telescopes may have the necessary resolution to resolve the double line structure of such a couplet.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Lepton-Flavored Asymmetric Dark Matter and Interference in Direct Detection

In flavored dark matter models, dark matter can scatter off of nuclei through Higgs and photon exchange, both of which can arise from renormalizable interactions and individually lead to strong constraints from direct detection. While these two interaction channels can destructively interfere in the scattering amplitude, for a thermal relic with equal abundances for the dark matter particle and its antiparticle, this produces no effect on the total event rate. Focusing on lepton-flavored dark matter, we show that it is quite natural for dark matter to have become asymmetric during high-scale leptogenesis, and that in this case the direct detection bounds can be significantly weakened due to interference. We quantify this by mapping out and comparing the regions of parameter space that are excluded by direct detection for the symmetric and asymmetric cases of lepton-flavored dark matter. In particular, we show that the entire parameter region except for a narrow Higgs resonance window is ruled out in the symmetric case for fermion dark matter when the coupling to the Higgs dominates over the coupling to leptons, while large portions of parameter space are still allowed for the asymmetric case. The same is also true for a dark matter mass above 8 GeV for scalar dark matter when the coupling to leptons dominates over the coupling to the Higgs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Improved mass measurement using the boundary of many-body phase space

We show that mass measurements for new particles appearing in decay chains can be improved by determining the boundary of the available phase space in its full dimensionality rather than by using one-dimensional kinematic features for each stage of the cascade decay. This is demonstrated for the case of one particle decaying to three visible and one invisible particles in a two-stage cascade, but our methods also apply to a more general set of decay topologies. We show that not only mass differences, but also the overall scale of masses can be determined with high precision without having to rely on cross section information. The improvement arises from the properties of the higher dimensional phase space itself, independent of the matrix element for the decay, and it is not weakened by the presence of intermediate on-shell particles in the cascade. Our results are particularly significant for the case of low signal statistics, a distinct possibility for new physics searches in the near future.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Jet Extinction from Non-Perturbative Quantum Gravity Effects

The infrared-ultraviolet properties of quantum gravity suggest on very general grounds that hard short distance scattering processes are highly suppressed for center of mass scattering energies beyond the fundamental Planck scale. If this scale is not too far above the electroweak scale, these non-perturbative quantum gravity effects could be manifest as an extinction of high transverse momentum jets at the LHC. To model these effects we implement an Extinction Monte Carlo modification of the Pythia event generator based on a large damping Veneziano form factor modification of hard QCD scattering processes. Using this we illustrate the leading effects of extinction on the inclusive jet transverse momentum spectrum at the LHC. We estimate that an extinction mass scale of up to roughly half the center of mass beam collision energy could be probed with high statistics data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Cornering Light Stops with Dileptonic mT2

Supersymmetric spectra with a stop NLSP and a neutralino or gravitino LSP present a special challenge for collider searches. For stop pairs directly produced from QCD, the visible final-state particles are identical to those of top quark pair production, giving very similar kinematics but often with much smaller rates. The situation is exacerbated for compressed spectra with m(stop) ~ m(top) + m(LSP), as well as for lighter stops which can suffer from low acceptance efficiencies. In this note, we explore the power of a direct stop search using dileptonic mT2, similar to the one recently performed by ATLAS, but more optimized to cover these difficult regions of the (m(stop),m(LSP)) plane. Our study accounts for the effects of stop chirality and LSP identity, which can be significant. In particular, our estimates suggest that m(stop) ~ m(top) with a massless LSP is excludable for right-handed stops with bino-like (gravitino) LSP with 2012 (2011) data, but remains largely unobservable in the case of a higgsino-like singlino LSP. For each of these cases we map out the regions of parameter space that can be excluded with 2012 data, as well as currently allowed regions that would yield discovery-level significance. We also comment on the prospects of a precision mT2 shape measurement, and consider the potential of ATLAS's dileptonic stop -> b chi^+ searches when re-interpreted for light stops decaying directly to the LSP.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Lower Limits on the Strengths of Gamma Ray Lines from WIMP Dark Matter Annihilation

We study the spectra of gamma ray signals that arise from dark matter annihilation in the universe. We focus on the large class of theories where the photon spectrum includes both continuum spectrum of gamma rays that arise from annihilation into Standard Model states at tree level, as well as monochromatic gamma rays arising from annihilation directly into two photons at the one loop level. In this class of theories we obtain lower bounds on the ratio of the strength of the gamma ray line relative to the gamma ray continuum as a function of the dark matter mass and spin. These limits are obtained from the unitarity relation between the tree level amplitude of the primary annihilation channel and the imaginary part of the loop level amplitude for annihilation directly into photons, with the primary decay products running in the loop. These results are exact in the limit that dark matter annihilation is exclusively to a single Standard Model species, occurs through the lowest partial wave and respects CP. Away from this limit the bounds are approximate. Our conclusions agree with the known results in the literature in the case of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We use the Fermi-LAT observations to translate these limits into upper bounds on the dark matter annihilation cross section into any specific Standard Model state.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Flavored Dark Matter, and Its Implications for Direct Detection and Colliders

We consider theories where the dark matter particle carries flavor quantum numbers, and has renormalizable contact interactions with the Standard Model fields. The phenomenology of this scenario depends sensitively on whether dark matter carries lepton flavor, quark flavor or its own internal flavor quantum numbers. We show that each of these possibilities is associated with a characteristic type of vertex, has different implications for direct detection experiments and gives rise to distinct collider signatures. We find that the region of parameter space where dark matter has the right abundance to be a thermal relic is in general within reach of current direct detection experiments. We focus on a class of models where dark matter carries tau flavor, and show that the collider signals of these models include events with four or more isolated leptons and missing energy. A full simulation of the signal and backgrounds, including detector effects, shows that in a significant part of parameter space these theories can be discovered above Standard Model backgrounds at the Large Hadron Collider. We also study the extent to which flavor and charge correlations among the final state leptons allows models of this type to be distinguished from theories where dark matter couples to leptons but does not carry flavor.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Multi-Lepton Signals of Multiple Higgs Bosons

We identify and investigate novel multi-lepton signatures of extended Higgs sectors at the LHC in the guise of CP- and flavor-conserving two-Higgs-doublet models (2HDMs). Rather than designing individual searches tailored to specific 2HDM signals, we employ the combination of many exclusive multi-lepton search channels to probe the collective signal from the totality of production and decay processes. Multi-lepton signals of 2HDMs can arise from a variety of sources, including Standard Model-like production of the CP-even scalars, $h$ and $H$, through gluon-fusion with $h,H \to ZZ^{(*)}$, or associated production with vector bosons or top quarks, with $h,H \to WW^{(*)}, ZZ^{(*)},ττ$. Additional sources include gluon-fusion production of the heavy CP-even scalar with decays through the light CP-even scalar, the CP-odd scalar, $A$, or the charged scalar, $H^\pm$, such as $H \to hh$, $H \to AA$, $H \to H^+ H^-$, $H \to ZA$, with $A \to Zh, ττ$, $H^\pm \to Wh$, and $h \to WW^*, ZZ^*,ττ$. Altogether, the combined multi-lepton signal may greatly exceed that of the Standard Model Higgs boson and provides a sensitive probe of extended Higgs sectors. As a proof of principle, we use a factorized mapping procedure between model parameters and signatures to determine multi-lepton sensitivities in four different flavor conserving 2HDM parameter spaces by simulating the acceptance times efficiency in 20 exclusive multi-lepton channels for 222 independent production and decay topologies that arise for four benchmark 2HDM spectra within each parameter space. A comparison of these sensitivities with the results of a multi-lepton search conducted by the CMS collaboration using 5 fb$^{-1}$ of data collected from 7 TeV $pp$ collisions yields new limits in regions of 2HDM parameter space that have not previously been covered by other types of direct experimental searches.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Multi-Lepton Signals of the Higgs Boson

The possibility of searching for the Higgs boson in channels with multiple non-resonant leptons is evaluated in light of recent advances in multi-lepton search techniques at the LHC. The total multi-lepton Higgs signal exceeds the four lepton gold-plated resonant mode, but is spread over many channels with same-sign di-lepton, tri-lepton, and four lepton final states. While any individual channel alone is not significant, the exclusive combination across multiple channels is shown to provide a sensitivity competitive with other discovery level searches for the Higgs boson. We estimate that with 5 inverse femtobarn of data, existing non-optimized multi-lepton searches at the LHC could exclude the Higgs boson to 95% CL at a few times the predicted Standard Model cross section in the mass range 120-150 GeV. Refinements focused specifically on the Higgs boson signal are suggested that would further increase sensitivity. We illustrate the possibility of discerning patterns in production and decay modes using correlations across multiple channels by comparing sensitivities to Standard Model, Fermi-phobic, and b-phobic Higgs bosons.

hep-ph↗