arXiv subjects

Myeonghun Park

Publications and source records attributed to Myeonghun Park.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Tagging a jet from a dark sector with Jet-substructures at colliders

The phenomenology of dark sector is complicated if dark sector is charged under a confined hidden gauge group. In such kind of model, a dark parton produced at a high energy collider showers and hadronize to a cluster of dark mesons. Dark mesons then decay to visible particles and produce a jet-like signal, which is called "dark jet" in this work. Collider signal of dark jet depends on the property of dark mesons. For example, a finite lifetime of dark meson would provide displaced vertex or displaced track, thus one can use these displaced objects to tag dark jet. However if the lifetime of dark meson is collider-negligible (too short to manifest a displaced vertex), it would be difficult to distinguish a dark jet from SM QCD jets. In this work we propose a new tagging strategy to identify dark jets from QCD backgrounds. This strategy is based on jet-substructure analysis. We study various jet-substructure variables and find out variables with good discrimination ability. Our result shows that by combining multiple jet-substructure variables, one could distinguish dark jets from QCD background, and thus enhance the sensitivity of dark sector search at collider.

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arXiv2020

Demystifying Freeze-In Dark Matter at the LHC

Freeze-in mechanism provides robust dark matter production in the early universe. Due to its feeble interactions, freeze-in dark matter leaves signals at colliders which are often involved with long lived particle decays and consequent displaced vertices (DV). In this paper, we develop a method to read off mass spectrum of particles being involved in the DV events at the LHC. We demonstrate that our method neatly works under a limited statistics, detector resolution and smearing effects. The signature of DV at the LHC can come from either highly suppressed phase-space or a feeble coupling of particle decay processes. By measuring invisible particle mass spectrum, one can discriminate these two cases and thus extract information of dominant freeze-in processes in the early universe at the LHC.

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arXiv2019

Exotic decays of top partners: mind the search gap

Many standard model extensions, including composite Goldstone Higgs models, predict vector-like fermionic top-partners at the TeV scale. The intensive search programmes by ATLAS and CMS focus on decays into a 3$^{\rm rd}$ generation quark and an electroweak boson ($W,Z,h$). However, underlying models of partial compositeness contain additional states that give rise to exotic top partner decays. We consider a well-motivated scenario in which a charge-$2/3$ top-partner decays into a pseudo-scalar, $T\rightarrow t\ a$, with $a\rightarrow gg \mbox{ or } b\bar{b}$ dominating below the $t\bar{t}$ threshold. We show that the constraints on the top partner mass from QCD pair production are substantially weakened, still allowing a top partner mass as light as $400$ GeV.

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arXiv2019

Portraying Double Higgs at the Large Hadron Collider

We examine the discovery potential for double Higgs production at the high luminosity LHC in the final state with two $b$-tagged jets, two leptons and missing transverse momentum. Although this dilepton final state has been considered a difficult channel due to the large backgrounds, we argue that it is possible to obtain sizable signal significance, by adopting a deep learning framework making full use of the relevant kinematics along with the jet images from the Higgs decay. For the relevant number of signal events we obtain a substantial increase in signal sensitivity over existing analyses. We discuss relative improvements at each stage and the correlations among the different input variables for the neutral network. The proposed method can be easily generalized to the semi-leptonic channel of double Higgs production, as well as to other processes with similar final states.

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arXiv2019

Probing the Triple Higgs Self-Interaction at the Large Hadron Collider

We propose a novel kinematic method to expedite the discovery of the double Higgs ($hh$) production in the $\ell^+\ell^- b \bar{b} + E_T \hspace{-0.52cm} \big / ~$ final state. We make full use of recently developed kinematic variables, as well as the variables $\it Topness$ for the dominant background (top quark pair production) and $\it Higgsness$ for the signal. We obtain a significant increase in sensitivity compared to the previous analyses which used sophisticated algorithms like boosted decision trees or neutral networks. The method can be easily generalized to resonant $hh$ production as well as other non-resonant channels.

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arXiv2018

Probing New Physics by the Tail of the Off-shell Higgs in $V_LV_L$ Mode

Off-shell Higgs at the high mass tail may shed light on the underlying mechanism of the electroweak symmetry breaking. Due to the large cancellation in the standard model (SM) between the box and Higgs-mediated triangle diagrams, the $gg\to WW(ZZ)$ process in the SM is dominated by the $V_T V_T$ transverse-mode at the high mass tail. The cancellation does not necessarily hold, when there is a sufficiently large new physics contribution resulting in $V_LV_L$ longitudinal mode, which is commonly the case when the Higgs sector is modified. Thus the $V_LV_L$ final states in the high mass tail can be utilized as a sensitive probe for such models. In the paper we focus on a study of the $gg \to ZZ$ process in the fully leptonic decay modes, proposing to utilize the polarization modes of the off-shell Higgs to probe new physics, whose contribution mainly shows in the longitudinal mode. As examples, we analyze three different Higgs sector new physics cases (Higgs portal with a light scalar, a broad-width scalar that mixes with the Higgs, and quantum critical Higgs models), and demonstrate that the angular information relating to the polarization serves as very sensitive probe for such new physics.

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arXiv2018

Dark matter direct detection with spin-2 mediators

We consider models where a massive spin-two resonance acts as the mediator between Dark Matter (DM) and the SM particles through the energy-momentum tensor. We examine the effective theory for fermion, vector and scalar DM generated in these models and find novel types of DM-SM interaction never considered before. We identify the effective interactions between DM and the SM quarks when the mediator is integrated out, and match them to the gravitational form factors relevant for spin-independent DM-nucleon scattering. We also discuss the interplay between DM relic density conditions, direct detection bounds and collider searches for the spin-two mediator.

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arXiv2018

Adding Pseudo-Observables to the Four-Lepton Experimentalist's Toolbox

The "golden" channel, in which the newly-discovered Higgs boson decays to four leptons by means of intermediate vector bosons, is important for determining the properties of the Higgs boson and for searching for subtle new physics effects. Different approaches exist for parametrizing the relevant Higgs couplings in this channel; here we relate the use of pseudo-observables to methods based on specifying the most general amplitude or Lagrangian terms for the $HVV$ interactions. We also provide projections for sensitivity in this channel in several novel scenarios, illustrating the use of pseudo-observables, and analyze the role of kinematic distributions and (ratios of) rates in such $H\to4\ell$ studies.

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arXiv2018

Examining the origin of dark matter mass at colliders

As conventional dark matter scenarios have been probed extensively so far, the physics of a light dark matter charged under a new gauge group (dark gauge group) becomes one of new research avenues in many theoretical and experimental studies. We examine properties of a dark photon showering, the radiation process of light gauge bosons from energetic dark matter particles produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This showering process provides different signatures at the LHC depending on the property of dark matter under the dark gauge group. We show that the LHC experiment can identify the chirality of a dark matter, which leads to understanding the mass origin of particles in the dark sector.

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arXiv2018

Dark Matter Direct Detection from new interactions in models with spin-two mediators

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arXiv2018

Spectral Decomposition of Missing Transverse Energy at Hadron Colliders

We propose a spectral decomposition to systematically extract information of dark matter at hadron colliders. The differential cross section of events with missing transverse energy (MET) can be expressed by a linear combination of basis functions. In the case of $s$-channel mediator models for dark matter particle production, basis functions are identified with the differential cross sections of sub-processes of virtual mediator and visible particle production while the coefficients of basis functions correspond to dark matter invariant mass distribution in the manner of the Källén-Lehmann spectral decomposition. For a given MET data set and mediator model, we show that one can differentiate a certain dark matter-mediator interaction from another through spectral decomposition.

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arXiv2017

KK graviton resonance and cascade decays in warped gravity

We consider the Kaluza-Klein (KK) graviton and its decays in the presence of the light radion, the modulus of extra dimension, appearing naturally light due to classical scale invariance in warped gravity. Due to the presence of a sizable wavefunction overlap in the extra dimension between the KK graviton and the radion, the KK graviton can decay largely into a pair of radions, each of which decays into a pair of collimated photons or photon-jets. Focusing on the setup where the KK graviton has suppressed couplings to the Higgs boson and fermions, we discuss the bounds on the light radion in the parameter space where the photon-jets are relevant. Moreover, we pursue the possibility of distinguishing the scenario from the case with direct photon contributions by the angular distributions of photons in the LHC Run 2. Roles of KK graviton and radion as mediators of dark matter interactions, extensions with brane kinetic terms and the model with a holographic composite Higgs are also addressed.

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arXiv2017

Identifying a new particle with jet substructures

We investigate a potential of measuring properties of a heavy resonance X, exploiting jet substructure techniques. Motivated by heavy higgs boson searches, we focus on the decays of X into a pair of (massive) electroweak gauge bosons. More specifically, we consider a hadronic Z boson, which makes it possible to determine properties of X at an earlier stage. For $m_X$ of O(1) TeV, two quarks from a Z boson would be captured as a "merged jet" in a significant fraction of events. The use of the merged jet enables us to consider a Z-induced jet as a reconstructed object without any combinatorial ambiguity. We apply a conventional jet substructure method to extract four-momenta of subjets from a merged jet. We find that jet substructure procedures may enhance features in some kinematic observables formed with subjets. Subjet momenta are fed into the matrix element associated with a given hypothesis on the nature of X, which is further processed to construct a matrix element method (MEM)-based observable. For both moderately and highly boosted Z bosons, we demonstrate that the MEM with current jet substructure techniques can be a very powerful discriminator in identifying the physics nature of X. We also discuss effects from choosing different jet sizes for merged jets and jet-grooming parameters upon the MEM analyses.

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arXiv2016

Apparent unitarity violation in top quark's mass off-shell region from a new physics at high energy colliders

Perturbative unitarity conditions have been playing an important role by estimating the energy scale of new physics, including the Higgs mass as one of the most important examples. In this letter, we show that there is a possibility to see the hint of a new physics (top quark partner) indirectly by observing an "apparent" unitarity violation in $M_{bw}$ distribution well above top quark mass in a process of a heavy resonance decaying into a pair of top quarks.

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arXiv2016

Revealing the jet substructure in a compressed spectrum

The physics beyond the Standard Model with parameters of the compressed spectrum is well motivated both in a theory side and with phenomenological reasons, especially related to dark matter phenomenology. In this letter, we propose a method to tag soft final state particles from a decaying process of a new particle in this parameter space. By taking a supersymmetric gluino search as an example, we demonstrate how the Large Hadron Collider experimental collaborations can improve a sensitivity in these non-trivial search regions.

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arXiv2016

Enhancement of new physics signal sensitivity with mistagged charm quarks

We investigate the potential for enhancing search sensitivity for signals having charm quarks in the final state, using the sizable bottom-mistagging rate for charm quarks at the LHC. Provided that the relevant background processes contain light quarks instead of charm quarks, the application of b-tagging on charm quark-initiated jets enables us to reject more background events than signal ones due to the relatively small mistagging rate for light quarks. The basic idea is tested with two rare top decay processes: i) t -> c h -> c b bbar and ii) t -> b H+ -> b bbar c where h and H+ denote the Standard Model-like higgs boson and a charged higgs boson, respectively. The major background source is a hadronic top quark decay such as t -> b W+ -> b sbar c. We test our method with Monte Carlo simulation at the LHC 14TeV, and find that the signal-over-background ratio can be increased by a factor of O(6-7) with a suitably designed (heavy) flavor tagging algorithm and scheme.

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arXiv2016

Simplified DM models with the full SM gauge symmetry : the case of $t$-channel colored scalar mediators

The general strategy for dark matter (DM) searches at colliders currently relies on simplified models. In this paper, we propose a new $t$-channel UV-complete simplified model that improves the existing simplified DM models in two important respects: (i) we impose the full SM gauge symmetry including the fact that the left-handed and the right-handed fermions have two independent mediators with two independent couplings, and (ii) we include the renormalization group evolution when we derive the effective Lagrangian for DM-nucleon scattering from the underlying UV complete models by integrating out the $t$-channel mediators. The first improvement will introduce a few more new parameters compared with the existing simplified DM models. In this study we look at the effect this broader set of free parameters has on direct detection and the mono-$X$ + MET ($X$=jet,$W,Z$) signatures at 13 TeV LHC while maintaining gauge invariance of the simplified model under the full SM gauge group. We find that the direct detection constraints require DM masses less than 10 GeV in order to produce phenomenologically interesting collider signatures. Additionally, for a fixed mono-W cross section it is possible to see very large differences in the mono-jet cross section when the usual simplified model assumptions are loosened and isospin violation between RH and LH DM-SM quark couplings are allowed.

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arXiv2016

The 750 GeV Diphoton Excess May Not Imply a 750 GeV Resonance

We discuss non-standard interpretations of the 750 GeV diphoton excess recently reported by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations which do not involve a new, relatively broad, resonance with a mass near 750 GeV. Instead, we consider the sequential cascade decay of a much heavier, possibly quite narrow, resonance into two photons along with one or more invisible particles. The resulting diphoton invariant mass signal is generically rather broad, as suggested by the data. We examine three specific event topologies - the antler, the sandwich, and the 2-step cascade decay, and show that they all can provide a good fit to the observed published data. In each case, we delineate the preferred mass parameter space selected by the best fit. In spite of the presence of invisible particles in the final state, the measured missing transverse energy is moderate, due to its anti- correlation with the diphoton invariant mass. We comment on the future prospects of discriminating with higher statistics between our scenarios, as well as from more conventional interpretations.

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