arXiv subjects

Zeren Simon Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Zeren Simon Wang.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Searching for a Single Photon from Lightest Neutralino Decays in R-parity-violating Supersymmetry at FASER

In this work, we propose a search for a single photon at \texttt{FASER} and \texttt{FASER2}, produced from decays of bino-like, sub-GeV lightest neutralinos in the theoretical framework of the R-parity-violating (RPV) Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We consider a list of representative benchmark scenarios with one or two non-vanishing RPV couplings. The photon has an energy $\mathcal{O}\left(0.1\right)-\mathcal{O}\left(1\right)$ TeV. We find a sensitivity reach for RPV couplings beyond the current bounds by orders of magnitude at \texttt{FASER} and \texttt{FASER2}.

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arXiv2022

Long-lived heavy neutral leptons from mesons in effective field theory

In the framework of the low-energy effective field theory of the Standard Model extended with heavy neutral leptons (HNLs), we calculate the production rates of HNLs from meson decays triggered by dimension-six operators. We consider both lepton-number-conserving and lepton-number-violating four-fermion operators involving either a pair of HNLs or a single HNL. Assuming that HNLs are long-lived, we perform simulations and investigate the reach of the proposed far detectors at the high-luminosity LHC to (i) active-heavy neutrino mixing and (ii) the Wilson coefficients associated with the effective operators, for HNL masses below the mass of the $B$-meson. We further convert the latter to the associated new-physics scales. Our results show that scales in excess of hundreds of TeV and the active-heavy mixing squared as small as $10^{-15}$ can be probed by these experiments.

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arXiv2022

Atmospheric axion-like particles at Super-Kamiokande

We consider a muonphilic axion-like-particle (ALP), denoted as $a$, lighter than twice the muon mass. ALPs of this mass range dominantly decay into a pair of photons, induced by a triangular muon loop. Such light muonphilic ALPs are naturally long-lived. At the atmosphere, the ALPs are copiously produced from charged-meson decays in air showers, such as $π^\pm \to μ^\pm νa$, via the ALP-muon coupling $g_{aμμ}$. After propagating tens of kilometers, the ALPs decay with $a\to γγ$ inside large-volume Cherenkov detectors near the Earth's surface, such as Super-Kamiokande (SK). We find the present SK observation constrains on muonphilic ALPs of mass range [1 MeV, 30 MeV] and ALP-muon coupling $[10^{-3}$, $10^{2}]$, assuming the proper decay length $cτ_a$ in [$10^{-3}$ km, $10^6$ km] either dependent on or independent of $g_{aμμ}$. We conclude that atmospheric searches of such exotic states can be complementary to collider and beam-dump experiments as well as astrophysical probes.

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arXiv2022

Long-lived Sterile Neutrinos at Belle II in Effective Field Theory

Large numbers of $τ$ leptons are produced at Belle II. These could potentially decay into sterile neutrinos that, for the mass range under consideration, are typically long-lived, leading to displaced-vertex signatures. Here, we study a displaced-vertex search sterile-neutrino-extended Standard Model Effective Field Theory. The production and decay of the sterile neutrinos can be realized via either the standard active-sterile neutrino mixing or higher-dimensional operators in the effective Lagrangian. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations to estimate the Belle II sensitivities to such interactions. We find that Belle II can probe non-renormalizable dimension-six operators involving a single sterile neutrino up to a few TeV in the new-physics scale.

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arXiv2022

Probing axion-like particles coupling to gluons at the LHC

Assuming ALPs couple to gluons only, they can be produced via the $p p \to a j$ process and decay into two jets at the LHC. When the coupling parameter, $C_{\tilde{G}} / f_a$, is small, the lifetime of ALPs can be long enough leading to displaced final state jets. In this paper, we consider the signal including both the prompt and long-lived cases of ALPs by employing a specialized Delphes module to handle displaced jets. Relevant background processes are generated and simulated at the detector level, and multivariate analyses based on machine-learning are performed to discriminate signal and background events and achieve the best sensitivities. Based on the data accumulated for this study, we forecast the expected upper limits on $C_{\tilde{G}}/f_a$ for ALP mass $m_a$ in the range 5$-$2300 GeV at 2-, 3- and 5-$σ$ significances at the High Luminosity-LHC with 14 TeV center-of-mass energy and 3 ab$^{-1}$ integrated luminosity. Vast previously unprobed regions in the parameter space spanned by $C_{\tilde{G}}/f_a$ and $m_a$ are probed and the best upper limits on $C_{\tilde{G}}/f_a$ at 2-$σ$ significance is found to be around $1.0 \times 10^{-2} \,\, {\rm TeV^{-1}}$ for $m_a \sim 500$ GeV. The ALP mass is reconstructed from the kinematics of final state jets and we find that it is measurable in this method when $m_a$ is below about 1 TeV at the HL-LHC. The effects of systematic uncertainties and validation of the EFT framework are also checked and discussed.

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arXiv2022

Search for long-lived axions with far detectors at future lepton colliders

In our previous work [Phys. Rev. D 101 (2020) 075046], we have proposed to install FAr Detectors at the Electron Positron Collider (FADEPC) to enhance the discovery potential of long-lived particles (LLPs). In this study, we consider eight designs of far detectors with different locations, volumes and geometries and investigate their potential for discovering long-lived axion-like particles (ALPs) via the process $e^-e^+ \rightarrow γ\,\, a,~ a \to γγ$ at future $e^{-}e^{+}$ colliders running at a center-of-mass energy of 91.2 GeV and integrated luminosities of 16, 150, and 750 ab$^{-1}$. We estimate their sensitivities on the model parameters in terms of the effective ALP-photon-photon coupling $C_{γγ} / Λ$, the effective ALP-photon-$Z$ coupling $C_{γZ} / Λ$, and ALP mass $m_a$ for three physics scenarios: $C_{γZ} = 0$; $C_{γZ} = C_{γγ}$ and both $C_{γZ}$ and $C_{γγ}$ can freely change. The results provide references for the optimization of far detectors at future electron-positron colliders.

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arXiv2022

Long-lived heavy neutral leptons at the LHC: four-fermion single-$N_R$ operators

Interest in searches for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) at the LHC has increased considerably in the past few years. In the minimal scenario, HNLs are produced and decay via their mixing with active neutrinos in the Standard Model (SM) spectrum. However, many SM extensions with HNLs have been discussed in the literature, which sometimes change expectations for LHC sensitivities drastically. In the $N_R$SMEFT, one extends the SM effective field theory with operators including SM singlet fermions, which allows to study HNL phenomenology in a "model independent" way. In this paper, we study the sensitivity of ATLAS to HNLs in the $N_R$SMEFT for four-fermion operators with a single HNL. These operators might dominate both production and decay of HNLs, and we find that new physics scales in excess of 20 TeV could be probed at the high-luminosity LHC.

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arXiv2021

Probing charged lepton flavor violation with axion-like particles at Belle II

We study charged lepton flavor violation associated with a light leptophilic axion-like particle (ALP), $X$, at the $B$-factory experiment Belle II. We focus on production of the ALP in the tau decays $τ\to X l$ with $l=e,μ$, followed by its decay via $X\to l^- l^+$. The ALP can be either promptly decaying or long-lived. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations, recasting a prompt search at Belle for lepton-flavor-violating $τ$ decays, and propose a displaced-vertex (DV) search. For both types of searches, we derive the Belle~II sensitivity reaches in both the product of branching fractions and the ALP coupling constants, as functions of the ALP mass and lifetime. The results show that the DV search exceeds the sensitivity reach of the prompt search to the relevant branching fractions by up to about a factor of 40 in the long decay length regime.

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arXiv2021

Time-delayed electrons from neutral currents at the LHC

We investigate long-lived particles (LLPs) produced in pair from neutral currents and decaying into a displaced electron plus two jets at the LHC, utilizing the proposed minimum ionizing particle timing detector at CMS. We study two benchmark models: the R-parity-violating supersymmetry with the lightest neutralinos being the lightest supersymmetric particle and two different $U(1)$ extensions of the standard model with heavy neutral leptons (HNLs). The light neutralinos are produced from the standard model $Z$-boson decays via small Higgsino components, and the HNLs arise from decays of a heavy gauge boson, $Z'$. By simulating the signal processes at the HL-LHC with the center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=$ 14 TeV and integrated luminosity of 3 ab$^{-1}$, our analyses indicate that the search strategy based on a timing trigger and the final state kinematics has the potential to probe the parameter space that is complementary to other traditional LLP search strategies such as those based on the displaced vertex.

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arXiv2021

Constraining electroweak and strongly charged long-lived particles with CheckMATE

Long-lived particles have become a new frontier in the exploration of physics beyond the Standard Model. In this paper, we present the implementation of four types of long-lived particle searches, viz. displaced leptons, disappearing track, displaced vertex (together with muons or with missing energy), and heavy charged tracks. These four categories cover the signatures of a large range of physics models. We illustrate their potential for exclusion and discuss their mutual overlaps in mass-lifetime space for two simple phenomenological models involving either a U(1)-charged or a coloured scalar.

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arXiv2021

Heavy neutral leptons in effective field theory and the high-luminosity LHC

Heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) with masses around the electroweak scale are expected to be rather long-lived particles, as a result of the observed smallness of the active neutrino masses. In this work, we study long-lived HNLs in $N_R$SMEFT, a Standard Model (SM) extension with singlet fermions to which we add non-renormalizable operators up to dimension-6. Operators which contain two HNLs can lead to a sizable enhancement of the production cross sections, compared to the minimal case where HNLs are produced only via their mixing with the SM neutrinos. We calculate the expected sensitivities for the ATLAS detector and the future far-detector experiments: AL3X, ANUBIS, CODEX-b, FASER, MATHUSLA, and MoEDAL-MAPP in this setup. The sensitive ranges of the HNL mass and of the active-heavy mixing angle are much larger than those in the minimal case. We study both, Dirac and Majorana, HNLs and discuss how the two cases actually differ phenomenologically, for HNL masses above roughly 100 GeV.

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arXiv2021

Physics potential of a muon-proton collider

We propose a muon-proton collider with asymmetrical multi-TeV beam energies and integrated luminosities of $0.1-1$ ab$^{-1}$. With its large center-of-mass energies and yet small Standard Model background, such a machine can not only improve electroweak precision measurements but also probe new physics beyond the Standard Model to an unprecedented level. We study its potential in measuring the Higgs properties, probing the R-parity-violating Supersymmetry, as well as testing heavy new physics in the muon $g-2$ anomaly. We find that for these physics cases the muon-proton collider can perform better than both the ongoing and future high-energy collider experiments.

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arXiv2021

R-parity Violation and Light Neutralinos at ANUBIS and MAPP

In R-parity-violating supersymmetry the lightest neutralino can be very light, even massless. For masses in the range $500$ MeV$\lesssim m_{\tildeχ^0_1}\lesssim 4.5$ GeV the neutralino can be produced in hadron collisions from rare meson decays via an R-parity violating coupling, and subsequently decay to a lighter meson and a charged lepton. Due to the small neutralino mass and for small R-parity violating coupling the lightest neutralino is long-lived, leading to displaced vertices at fixed-target and collider experiments. In this work, we study such signatures at the proposed experiments ANUBIS and MAPP at the LHC. We also compare their sensitivity reach in these scenarios with that of other present and proposed experiments at the LHC such as ATLAS, CODEX-b, and MATHUSLA. We find that ANUBIS and MAPP can show complementary or superior sensitivity.

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arXiv2021

Long-lived light neutralinos at Belle II

We consider light neutralinos of mass about 1 GeV, produced from $τ$ lepton rare decays at Belle II, in the context of R-parity-violating (RPV) supersymmetry. With large and clean samples of $τ$ leptons produced at the Belle II experiment, excellent sensitivity to such light neutralinos with the exotic signatures of displaced vertices is expected. We focus on two benchmark scenarios of single RPV operators, $λ'_{311} L_3 Q_1 \bar{D}_1$ and $λ'_{312} L_3 Q_1 \bar{D}_2$, which induce both the production and decay of the lightest neutralino. For the reconstruction of a displaced vertex, we require at least two charged pions in the final states. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations for both signal and background events, and find that Belle II can explore regions in the parameter space competitive with other probes. In particular, for the $λ'_{311}$ scenario, it can put limits up to two orders of magnitude stronger than the current bounds.

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arXiv2021

Long-lived Sterile Neutrinos at the LHC in Effective Field Theory

We study the prospects of a displaced-vertex search of sterile neutrinos at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the framework of the neutrino-extended Standard Model Effective Field Theory ($ν$SMEFT). The production and decay of sterile neutrinos can proceed via the standard active-sterile neutrino mixing in the weak current, as well as through higher-dimensional operators arising from decoupled new physics. If sterile neutrinos are long-lived, their decay can lead to displaced vertices which can be reconstructed. We investigate the search sensitivities for the ATLAS/CMS detector, the future far-detector experiments: AL3X, ANUBIS, CODEX-b, FASER, MATHUSLA, and MoEDAL-MAPP, and at the proposed fixed-target experiment SHiP. We study scenarios where sterile neutrinos are predominantly produced via rare charm and bottom mesons decays through minimal mixing and/or dimension-six operators in the $ν$SMEFT Lagrangian. We perform simulations to determine the potential reach of high-luminosity LHC experiments in probing the EFT operators, finding that these experiments are very competitive with other searches.

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arXiv2021

Exotic Higgs decays into displaced jets at the LHeC

Profiling the Higgs boson requires the study of its non-standard decay modes. In this work we discuss the prospects of the Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) to detect scalar particles with masses $\gtrsim$ 10 GeV produced from decays of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson. These scalar particles decay mainly to bottom pairs, and in a vast portion of the allowed parameter space they acquire a macroscopic lifetime, hence giving rise to displaced hadronic vertices. The LHeC provides a very clean environment that allows for easy identification of these final states, in contrast to hadronic colliders where the overwhelming backgrounds and high pile-up render such searches incredibly challenging. We find that the LHeC provides a unique window of opportunity to detect scalar particles with masses between 10 GeV and half the SM Higgs mass. In the Higgs Portal scenarios we can test the mixing angle squared, $\sin^2 α$, as low as $10^{-5} - 10^{-7}$, with the exact value depending on the vacuum expectation value of the new scalar. Our results are also presented in a model-independent fashion in the lifetime-branching ratio and mass-branching ratio planes. We have found that exotic branching ratios of the Higgs boson at the sub-percent level can be probed, for the scalar decay length in the range $10^{-4}$ m $\lesssim c τ\lesssim 10^{-1}$ m. The expected coverage of the parameter space largely exceeds the published sensitivity of the indirect reach at the high-luminosity Large Hadron Collider via the invisible Higgs branching ratio.

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arXiv2020

Long-lived light neutralinos at future $Z-$factories

Future lepton colliders such as the CEPC and FCC-ee would run as high-luminosity $Z-$boson factories, which offer a unique opportunity to study long-lived particles which couple to Z-bosons. In order to exemplify this particular advantage, in this work we consider one benchmark physics scenario where the long-lived lightest neutralinos pair $(\tildeχ_1^0\tildeχ_1^0)$ is produced from $Z-$decays in the context of the R-parity violating supersymmetry. Our analysis indicates that when assuming BR$(Z\rightarrow \tildeχ_1^0\tildeχ_1^0) = 10^{-3}$ and $m_{\tildeχ_1^0} \sim 40$ GeV, the model parameter $λ'_{112} / m^2_{\tilde{f}}$ can be discovered down to as low as $\sim 1.5 \times 10^{-14}$ ($3.9 \times 10^{-14}$) GeV$^{-2}$ at the FCC-ee (CEPC) with center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s} = 91.2$ GeV and 150 (16) ab$^{-1}$ integrated luminosity. These limits exceed the projected sensitivity reaches of the ATLAS experiment at the HL-LHC and the proposed LHC experiments with far detectors (AL3X, CODEX-b, FASER, and MATHUSLA).

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arXiv2020

Physics with Far Detectors at Future Lepton Colliders

At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), several far detectors such as FASER and MATHUSLA have been proposed to target the long-lived particles (LLPs) featured with displaced vertices. Naturally one question arises as to the feasibility of installing similar far detectors at future lepton colliders like the CEPC and FCC-ee. Because of the different kinematics of final state particles and the freedom to locate both the experiment hall and the detectors, the future lepton collider with an additional far detector may play a unique role in searching for LLPs. In this study, we consider various locations and designs of far detectors at future $e^- e^+$ colliders and investigate their potentials for discovering LLPs in the physics scenarios including exotic Higgs decays, heavy neutral leptons, and the lightest neutralinos. Our analyses show that the kinematical distinctions between the lepton and hadron colliders render the optimal positions of far detectors lying at the direction perpendicular to the collider beams at future $e^- e^+$ colliders, in contrast to the LHC where a boost in the forward direction can be exploited. We also find that when searching for LLPs, such new experiments with far detectors at future lepton colliders may extend and complement the sensitivity reaches of the experiments at the future lepton colliders with usual near detectors, and the present and future experiments at the LHC. In particular, we find that, for the theory models considered in this study, a MATHUSLA-sized far detector would give a modest improvement compared to the case with a near detector only at future lepton colliders.

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