arXiv subjects

Rafiqul Rahaman

Publications and source records attributed to Rafiqul Rahaman.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Probing anomalous quartic gauge couplings in same-sign $W$ boson scattering with polarization and spin correlation

The study of quartic couplings of electroweak gauge bosons not only provides a test of the Standard Model (SM) predictions, but also can look for signals of new physics beyond the SM. We present a comprehensive study of anomalous quartic gauge couplings in same-sign $W^\pm W^\pm$ production via vector boson scattering at the LHC. The analysis is carried out within the framework of the SM Effective Field Theory, exploiting polarization and spin-correlation effects encoded in angular asymmetries in addition to conventional kinematic observables. We demonstrate that spin-correlation asymmetries provide sensitivity to anomalous $WWWW$ interactions that is comparable to that obtained from the transverse mass distribution of the $WW$ system. By identifying a minimal set of the most sensitive asymmetries, we show that the dominant constraints on the Wilson coefficients can be captured with a reduced number of observables. A combined analysis of angular asymmetries and kinematic information leads to improved limits compared to either approach alone. The impact of unitarity considerations is also examined by imposing invariant-mass cut-offs on the $WW$ system, allowing us to determine unitarity-safe regions for the anomalous couplings.

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arXiv2026

Distinguishing Higgs portal and neutralino dark matter via vector boson fusion

Understanding the nature of dark matter (DM) is a fundamental challenge in particle physics. In this paper, we investigate the potential of vector boson fusion (VBF) processes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to demonstrate, as a proof of principle, the feasibility of distinguishing between different dark matter scenarios, focusing on Higgs portal DM (HPDM) and neutralino DM in the $2j + \not\!\! E_T$ final state and exploiting the distinctive kinematic features of the VBF jets and the missing transverse energy. Our study reveals that the polarization of weak bosons in VBF plays a crucial role in shaping the transverse momentum distributions of the tagged jets, with the jets being less energetic in the transverse direction for the Higgs portal scenario compared to the neutralino scenario. In addition, the kinematic variables $\Delta\eta$ and $\Delta\phi$ exhibit characteristic differences between the Higgs portal and neutralino DM signals, providing significant discriminating power between these scenarios. We further apply a Kolmogorov--Smirnov test using linear discriminant analysis to quantify the distinguishability of the signals and find that the Higgs portal signals can be differentiated from neutralino DM signals with a C.L. exceeding $5\sigma$, thereby establishing the viability of collider-based discrimination between dark matter models.

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arXiv2026

Exploring Higgs EFT in $t\bar{t}hh$ at High Luminosity LHC

The non-resonant production of a Higgs boson pair in association with a top-antitop quark pair ($pp\rightarrow t\bar{t}hh$) has only recently begun to be explored at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and provides a unique and largely uncharted probe of the top-Higgs sector, offering complementary sensitivity to the Higgs self-coupling and higher-dimensional interactions beyond the Standard Model. In this work, we present a detailed study of this process within the framework of Higgs Effective Field Theory (HEFT) at the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). A comparative analysis is performed using a traditional cut-based approach in the single-lepton channel and a multivariate parametric boosted decision tree method in both single-lepton and dilepton final states. We derive one- and two-parameter limits at 95\% confidence level on the HEFT couplings $\delta\kappa_\lambda$, $c_2$, $c_{2g}$, $c_{tg}$, and $c_{tg2}$. The projected bound on $\delta\kappa_\lambda$ is weaker than current experimental constraints from dedicated Higgs-pair measurement; however, this coupling plays a critical role in shaping the multidimensional allowed parameter space. For the remaining HEFT couplings, where no direct experimental limits currently exist, our results provide the first sensitivity projections in the $t\bar{t}hh$ channel. Overall, this study demonstrates the strong potential of the $t\bar{t} hh$ production process to probe extended Higgs and top-quark interactions beyond the Standard Model through the exploitation of the $t\bar{t}hh$ data at the HL-LHC.

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arXiv2025

Analyzing $t\bar{t}Z$-couplings at the future $e^-p$ collider

The proposed Large Hadron Electron Collider (LHeC), with center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}\approx 1.3$ TeV, provides a clean and sensitive environment to probe the top quark's neutral current interactions with the $Z$ boson via the process $e^- p \to e^- t \bar{t}$. We investigate the precision with which the Standard Model (SM) $t\bar{t}Z$ couplings-the vector and axial-vector components ($\Delta C_{1V}$, $\Delta C_{1A}$)-can be measured, along with possible new physics effects parameterized by higher-dimensional operators inducing weak electric and magnetic dipole-like interactions ($C_{2V}$, $C_{2A}$). Focusing on the semileptonic decay channel, where either the top quark or anti-top decays leptonically to a positively charged lepton ($\ell^+ = e^+, \mu^+$), we utilize the azimuthal angle difference $\Delta \phi$ between the scattered electron and the charged lepton as the key observable. Using a one-parameter multi-bin $\chi^2$-analysis of this differential distribution, we find that constraints on $\Delta C_{1V}$ and $\Delta C_{1A}$ improve from order $10^{-1}$ at 50 fb$^{-1}$ to order $10^{-2}$ at 1000 fb$^{-1}$, corresponding to approximately 50% and 6% precision relative to their SM values. The anomalous tensor couplings $C_{2V}$ and $C_{2A}$ are constrained at the $10^{-1}$ level even at low luminosity and improve moderately with high luminosity. While the two-parameter analysis broadens the allowed regions due to parameter correlations, it retains competitive sensitivity, particularly for SM-like couplings. A systematic uncertainty of 5% is assumed throughout. These results highlight the LHeC's potential to provide complementary and competitive sensitivity to top-$Z$ couplings compared to current and future hadron and lepton collider capabilities.

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arXiv2024

On bipartite and tripartite entanglement at present and future particle colliders

Entanglement, rooted in the non-deterministic, non-local nature of quantum mechanics, serves as a fundamental correlation. High-energy particle colliders offer a unique platform for exploring entanglement in the relativistic regime. The recent observation of entanglement in $t\bar{t}$ production by ATLAS has sparked significant interest in investigating entanglement phenomena at colliders. While bipartite entanglement receives extensive attention, tripartite entanglement remains relatively uncharted. We investigate tripartite entanglement in $t\bar{t}Z$ production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) within the Standard Model and with a dimension-$8$ effective operator. Additionally, we explore bipartite entanglement in $t\bar{t}$, $tW^-$, and di-boson production processes, namely $W^+W^-$, $ZZ$, and $W^+Z$, at the LHC and future $e^+e^-$ collider. We numerically compute various measures of entanglement through Monte Carlo events based on the spin density matrix, with its elements (polarization and spin correlation) obtained by analyzing the angular distribution of the final decayed leptons.

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arXiv2024

Fatjet signatures of heavy neutrinos and heavy leptons in a left-right model with universal seesaw at the HL-LHC

We perform a collider search for fatjet signals originating from boosted heavy neutral and charged leptons with masses between a few hundred GeV to a TeV. These heavy leptons originate from the decay of heavy gauge bosons with masses above 4 TeV in a left-right symmetric extension of the Standard Model (SM), which considers a universal seesaw mechanism for the generation of all the SM fermion masses. The fatjet signals arise naturally in this model due to the presence of heavy seesaw partners of the SM fermions which decay to SM gauge bosons carrying large boosts. We employ substructure based variables lepton sub-jet fraction ($LSF$) and lepton mass drop ($LMD$) together with kinematic variables of fatjets to look for fatjet signals associated with non-isolated leptons. These variables help in reducing the SM backgrounds while retaining enough statistics for signal events, which leads to a robust discovery potential at the high-luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC).

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arXiv2023

Distinguishing nonstandard scalar and fermionic charged particles at future $e^+e^-$ collider

We investigate the possibility to identify the nature of spin of exotic charged particles at the future $e^+e^-$ collider in $l^\pm+2j+MET$ final state choosing IDM and MSSM as examples for the new physics models with scalar and fermionic exotic charged particles, respectively. We choose four benchmarks for the mass parameters for a significant deviation from the SM $W^+W^-$ background. We find that the $\cosθ$ of $W$ boson constructed from $jj$ pair and lepton have the potential to identify the MSSM signal compared to the IDM signal in longitudinally polarized initial beams. A more robust comparison is seen in the shape of the azimuthal angle of the $W$ boson and charged lepton, which can identify the IDM signal further if the beams are transversely polarized.

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arXiv2023

Probing top quark anomalous moments in $W$ boson associated single top quark production at the LHC using polarization and spin correlation

We study the $W$ boson associated single top quark production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to probe anomalous chromo-magnetic and chromo-electric moments of the top quark with the help of polarization and spin correlation observables besides the cross-section in the leptonic final state. We reconstruct the two neutrinos in the final state using the $M_{T2}$ assisted on-shell (MAOS) reconstruction method to measure the polarization and spin correlation asymmetries of the top quark and the $W$ boson. We estimate the limits on the anomalous moments in a detector-level simulation considering possible backgrounds for a few sets of integrated luminosities and examined the effect of systematic uncertainties.

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arXiv2023

Measuring Electroweak Quantum Numbers of Color Sextet Resonances at the LHC

We study the prospect of measuring the electroweak quantum numbers of beyond the Standard Model (SM) color sextet particles that decay into same-sign top quark pairs. Among these particles, the color sextet scalars give rise to top quarks with the same chirality, while the top quarks coming from the color sextet vector would have opposite chirality. This difference gets encoded in the angular distributions of the bottom quarks and leptons originating from the decays of the top quarks. We utilize this feature and the energy distributions of the final state jets and leptons to distinguish among the three possible color sextet resonances, taking into account various SM background processes at the $13$ TeV LHC.

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arXiv2023

Search for a leptophobic doubly charged Higgs in same-sign four-lepton and six-lepton signatures in a left-right symmetric model

We investigate the possibility of multi-lepton (four and six) signatures, including an exotic signature of same-sign four-lepton (SS4L) as signals of pair production of a doubly charged Higgs in the minimal left-right symmetric model, extended with two doublet scalars. The right-handed neutrino masses are generated in this model through a dimension-$5$ lepton-number violating operator allowing the triplet scalar interactions with leptons to become negligibly small. This leads to interesting six-lepton and SS4L signatures that can be observed at the high-luminosity phase of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) with almost no background for doubly charged Higgs with mass below 500 GeV.

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arXiv2023

On two-body and three-body spin correlations in leptonic $t\bar{t}Z$ production and anomalous couplings at the LHC

We study the anomalous $t\bar{t}Z$ couplings in the $t\bar{t}Z$ production in leptonic final state at the $13$ TeV LHC. We use the polarizations of top quarks and $Z$ boson, two-body and three-body spin correlations among the top quarks and $Z$ boson, and the cross section to probe the anomalous couplings. We estimate one parameter and simultaneous limits on the couplings of the effective vertex as well as the effective operators for a set of luminosities $150$ fb$^{-1}$, $300$ fb$^{-1}$, $1000$ fb$^{-1}$, and $3000$ fb$^{-1}$. The polarizations and the spin correlations are found to be helpful on top of the cross section to better constrain the anomalous couplings.

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arXiv2023

Breaking down the entire spectrum of spin correlations of a pair of particles involving fermions and gauge bosons

We discuss a formalism for the spin correlations and polarizations in two-particle systems with spins half-half, half-one and one-one, and provide the connections between the polarizations and correlations with the joint angular distributions of decay products identifying the asymmetries for them. We demonstrate the formalism in the processes $e^-e^+\to t\bar{t}$, $gb \to tW^-$ and $e^-e^+\to ZZ$ in the standard model as examples. We investigate the effect of some anomalous couplings on the polarizations and spin correlations in the processes $e^-e^+\to t\bar{t}$, $gb \to tW^-$ and $u\bar{d}\to ZW^+$ at parton level and compare their strengths. The spin correlations have the potential to provide a significant improvement over the polarizations in probing the anomalous couplings.

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arXiv2023

Exploring dark $Z_d$-boson in future Large Hadron-electron collider

The interaction between the dark $U(1)_d$ sector with the visible Standard Model (SM) sector takes place through the kinetic mixing between the dark photon $U(1)_d$ field $Z_d^μ$ and the SM $U(1)_Y$ gauge field $B_μ$. After the electroweak and $U(1)_d$ symmetry breaking, the dark photon $Z_d^μ$ acquires a mass and mixes with the SM neutral vector boson $Z_μ$. This mixing leads to parity-violating coupling between the $Z_d^μ$ and SM. The coupling between the dark photon and SM can be explored in low energy phenomenology as well as in collider experiments. The Lorentz structure of dark photon interaction with SM fermions is explored in the proposed high energy future Large Hadron-electron collider, which would provide efficient energy and a clean environment using cross-section and asymmetries associated with polarisation observable of the dark photon in leptons decay. A $χ^2$-analysis is performed to compare the strength of various variables for both the charge- and neutral-current processes. Based on this analysis, $90\%$ confidence level (C.L.) contours in the $ε$-$m_{Z_d}$ and $ε$-$g_V$ plane are obtained to put limits on the $Z_d^μ$ mass up to $100$ GeV, coupling strength $ε$ and on the Lorentz structure of dark photon coupling with the SM fermions ($g_V$) at $\sqrt{s} \approx 1.3$ TeV.

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arXiv2023

Study of anomalous gauge boson self-couplings and the role of spin-$1$ polarizations

The prime goal of this thesis is to study anomalous gauge boson self couplings, triple gauge boson couplings in particular, with the help of spin polarization observables of the gauge bosons $Z$ and $W^\pm$ in the presence of beam polarizations where ever possible. The neutral triple gauge boson couplings, i.e., $ZZZ$, $ZZγ$, $Zγγ$, are studied in $ZZ/Zγ$ ($2lq\bar{q}/2lγ$) production at an $e^+e^-$ collider with and without beam polarization. Some of these anomalous couplings are also studied in $ZZ$ ($4l$) production at the LHC. In the charge sector the anomalous gauge boson couplings, i.e., $WWZ$, $WWγ$ have been studied at an $e^+e^-$ collider in $W^+W^-$ ($l^-\bar{ν_l}q^\prime\bar{q}$) production. The $WWZ$ anomalous couplings are also studied in $ZW^\pm$ production at LHC in $3l$ + missing $E_T$ channel. All the analyses at an $e^+$-$e^-$ collider have been performed for center-of-mass (CM) energy of $500$ GeV and integrated luminosity of $100$ fb$^{-1}$. The analyses at the LHC are performed at $13$ TeV CM energy of $pp$ collisions. The cross sections and polarization asymmetries, along with other asymmetries (forward-backward, azimuthal), are used to obtain simultaneous limits on the anomalous couplings using Markov-Chain--Monte-Carlo (MCMC) method in each process. The polarization asymmetries can distinguish between $CP$-even and $CP$-odd couplings and help to put tighter constraints on the couplings. The polarization of the initial $e^-$ and $e^+$ beam, in case of $e^+e^-$ collider, are used to increase the signal to background ratio, putting tighter constraints on the anomalous couplings. The polarization asymmetries are instrumental in the measurement of anomalous couplings should a deviation from the SM be observed.

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arXiv2021

Probing non-standard $b\bar{b}h$ interaction at the LHC at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV

In the detailed probe of Higgs boson properties at the Large Hadron Collider, and in looking for new physics signatures in the electroweak symmetry breaking sector, the bottom quark Yukawa coupling has a crucial role. We investigate possible departure from the standard model value of $b\bar{b}h$ coupling, phenomenologically expressed in terms of a modification factor $α_b$, in $b\bar{b}$-associated production of the $125$-GeV scalar at the high-luminosity LHC. In a next-to-leading order estimate, we make use of a gradient boosting algorithm to improve in statistical significance upon a cut-based analysis. It is found possible to probe down to $α_b = 3$ with more than $5~σ$ significance, with ${\cal L} = 3000$ fb$^{-1}$ and $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV, while the achievable limit at $95\%$ C.L. is $\pm 1.95$.

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arXiv2020

Unravelling the anomalous gauge boson couplings in $ZW^\pm$ production at the LHC and the role of spin-$1$ polarizations

We study the anomalous triple gauge boson couplings (aTGC) in $ZW^\pm$ production in $3l$ + missing $E_T$ channel at the LHC for $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. We use cross sections, azimuthal asymmetry, forward-backward asymmetry, and polarization asymmetries of $Z$ and reconstructed $W$ to estimate simultaneous limits on the anomalous couplings for both the effective vertex formalism as well as the effective operator approach using the Markov-chain--Monte-Carlo (MCMC) method for luminosities $35.9$ fb$^{-1}$, $100$ fb$^{-1}$, $300$ fb$^{-1}$, $1000$ fb$^{-1}$, and $3000$ fb$^{-1}$. The trilepton invariant mass ($m_{3l}$)and the transverse momentum of $Z$ ($p_T(Z)$) are found to be sensitive to the aTGC for the cross sections as well as for the asymmetries. We observed that the asymmetries significantly improve the measurement of anomalous couplings at the high-luminosity large hadron collider (LHC) if a deviation from the Standard Model (SM) is observed.

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arXiv2020

Probing the anomalous triple gauge boson couplings in $e^+e^-\to W^+W^-$ using $W$ polarizations with polarized beams

We study the anomalous $W^+W^-V$ ($V=γ,Z$) couplings in $e^+e^-\to W^+W^-$ using the complete set of polarization observables of $W$ boson with longitudinally polarized electron ($e^-$) and positron ($e^+$) beams. For the effective $W^+W^-V$ couplings, we use the most general Lorentz invariant form factor parametrization as well as $SU(2)\times U(1)$ invariant dimension-$6$ effective operators. We estimate simultaneous limits on the anomalous couplings using the Markov-Chain--Monte-Carlo (MCMC) method for an $e^+e^-$ collider running at center of mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=500$ GeV and the integrated luminosity of ${\cal L}=100$ fb$^{-1}$, $3.2$ ab$^{-1}$ and $4$ ab$^{-1}$. The best limits on the anomalous couplings are obtained for $e^-$ and $e^+$ polarization being $(\pm 0.8,\mp 0.6)$ for both $100$ fb$^{-1}$ and $3.2$ ab$^{-1}$ of luminosity.

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arXiv2019

Anomalous triple gauge boson couplings in $ZZ$ production at the LHC and the role of $Z$ boson polarizations

We study anomalous couplings among neutral gauge bosons in $ZZ$ production at the LHC for $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV in $4$-lepton final state. We use the cross section and polarization asymmetries of the $Z$ boson to estimate simultaneous limits on anomalous coupling using Markov-Chain--Monte-Carlo (MCMC) method for luminosities $35.9$ fb$^{-1}$, $150$ fb$^{-1}$, $300$ fb$^{-1}$ and $1000$ fb$^{-1}$. The $CP$-even polarization asymmetry $A_{x^2-y^2}$ is sensitive mainly to the $CP$-odd couplings $f_4^{Z/γ}$ (quadratically) providing a probe to identify $CP$-odd nature of interaction at the LHC. We find that the polarization asymmetries significantly improve the estimation of anomalous couplings should a deviation from the Standard Model (SM) be observed.

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