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Published November 2019 | Submitted
Journal Article Open

Long-Lived Particles at the Energy Frontier: The MATHUSLA Physics Case

Curtin, David
Zurek, Kathryn M. ORCID icon

Abstract

We examine the theoretical motivations for long-lived particle (LLP) signals at the LHC in a comprehensive survey of standard model (SM) extensions. LLPs are a common prediction of a wide range of theories that address unsolved fundamental mysteries such as naturalness, dark matter, baryogenesis and neutrino masses, and represent a natural and generic possibility for physics beyond the SM (BSM). In most cases the LLP lifetime can be treated as a free parameter from the m scale up to the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis limit of m. Neutral LLPs with lifetimes above 100 m are particularly difficult to probe, as the sensitivity of the LHC main detectors is limited by challenging backgrounds, triggers, and small acceptances. MATHUSLA is a proposal for a minimally instrumented, large-volume surface detector near ATLAS or CMS. It would search for neutral LLPs produced in HL-LHC collisions by reconstructing displaced vertices (DVs) in a low-background environment, extending the sensitivity of the main detectors by orders of magnitude in the long-lifetime regime. We study the LLP physics opportunities afforded by a MATHUSLA-like detector at the HL-LHC, assuming backgrounds can be rejected as expected. We develop a model-independent approach to describe the sensitivity of MATHUSLA to BSM LLP signals, and compare it to DV and missing energy searches at ATLAS or CMS. We then explore the BSM motivations for LLPs in considerable detail, presenting a large number of new sensitivity studies. While our discussion is especially oriented towards the long-lifetime regime at MATHUSLA, this survey underlines the importance of a varied LLP search program at the LHC in general. By synthesizing these results into a general discussion of the top–down and bottom-up motivations for LLP searches, it is our aim to demonstrate the exceptional strength and breadth of the physics case for the construction of the MATHUSLA detector.

Additional Information

© 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd. Received 16 August 2018; Accepted 11 June 2019; Accepted Manuscript online 11 June 2019; Published 1 October 2019. The editors would like to thank David Morrissey for valuable feedback on a draft version of this manuscript. The work of D Curtin was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant PHY-1620074, and by the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics. The work of M Drewes was supported by the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and by the DFG cluster of excellence 'Origin and Structure of the Universe' (universe-cluster.de). The work of P Meade was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-PHY-1620628 R N Mohapatra, R Sundrum and Y Tsai acknowledge the support of NSF Grant No.PHY1620074. The work of J Shelton was supported in part by DOE Grant DE-SC0017840. The work of B Batell is supported in part by the US Department of Energy under Grant DE-SC0015634. The work of N Blinov is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No.DE-AC02-76SF00515 The work of A Fernández Téllez, K S Caballero-Mora, M Rodriguez Cahuantzi and J C Arteaga Velazquez is supported in part by CONACyT-México, Grants CB 243290 The work of Jae Hyeok Chang is supported by DoE Grant DE-SC0017938. The work of T Cohen was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-SC0018191 and DE-SC0011640. The work of P Cox is supported by the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI), MEXT, Japan. The work of N Craig is supported in part by the US Department of Energy under the Grant DE-SC0014129. Y Cui is supported in part by the US Department of Energy Grant DE-SC0008541. The research activities of K R Dienes are supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant DE-FG02-13ER41976 (DE-SC0009913) and by the U.S. National Science Foundation through its employee IR/D program. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors, and do not represent any funding agencies. J Dror is supported in part by the DOE under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231. R Essig acknowledges support from DoE Grant DE-SC0017938. The work of J A Evans was supported in part by NSF CAREER Grant PHY-1654502 and by DOE Grant DE-SC0015655. The work of A Fernández Téllez, K S Caballero Mora, M Rodriguez Cahuantzi and J C Arteaga Velazquez is supported in part by CONACyT-México, Grants 243290. The work of E Fuchs was supported in part by the Minerva Foundation. The work of T Gherghetta was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant DE-SC0011842. The CP3-Origins centre (C Hagedorn) is partially funded by the Danish National Research Foundation, Grant No. DNRF90. J C Helo is supported by Chile Grants Fondecyt No. 1161463,Conicyt PIA/ACT 1406 and Basal FB0821. M Hirsch is supported by the Spanish MICINN Grants FPA2017-85216-P, SEV-2014-0398 and PROMETEOII/2014/084 (Generalitat Valenciana) Y Hochberg is supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1112/17), by the Binational Science Foundation (Grant No. 2016155), by the I-CORE Program of the Planning Budgeting Committee (Grant No. 1937/12), by the German Israel Foundation (Grant No. I-2487-303.7/2017), and by the Azrieli Foundation. A Hook. is supported by the NSF under Grant NSF-PHY-1620074 and the Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics A Ibarra is partially supported by the DFG cluster of excellence EXC 153 'Origin and Structure of the Universe' and by the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 S Ipek. is supported by the University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and parttialy supported by NSF Grant No. PHY-1620638. S Joon is supported by Korea NRF-2017R1D1A1B03030820 and NRF-2015R1A4A1042542. Simon Knapen is supported by the DoE under contract 5DE-AC02-05CH11231, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grants No.PHY-1316783 and No. PHY-1002399. The work of E Kuflik is supported by the I-CORE Program of the Planning Budgeting Committee of the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1937/12), by the Binational Science Foundation (Grant No. 2016153), and the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1111/17). This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. H J Lubatti and C Alpigiani are supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant PHY-1509257. The research of D McKeen is supported in part by the National Research Council of Canada. The work of S. Moretti is supported in part through the NExT Institute, the STFC CG ST/L000296/1 and the H2020-MSCA-RISE-2014 Grant No. 645722 (NonMinimalHiggs). The work of N Nagata was supported in part by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No. 17K14270 The work of J M No was partially supported by the European Research Council under the European Unions Horizon 2020 program (ERC Grant Agreement No.648680 DARKHORIZONS), and by the Programa Atraccion de Talento de la Comunidad de Madrid under Grant No. 2017-T1/TIC-5202. The work of G Perez is supported by grants from the BSF, ERC, ISF, Minerva, and the Weizmann-UK Making Connections Program. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Research and Innovation. The work of M Reece was supported in part by the DOE Grant de-sc0013607. The work of D J Robinson was supported in part by NSF Grant PHY-1720252. The work of A Fernández Téllez, K S Caballero Mora, M Rodriguez-Cahuantzi and J C Arteaga Velazquez is supported in part by CONACyT-México, Grants 243290. M Rodíguez Cahuantzi also thankfully acknowledge the computer resources, technical expertise and support provided by the Laboratorio Nacional de Supercómputo del Sureste de México and VIEP-BUAP. Daniel Stolarski is supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The work was supported by the Instituto de Investigaciones Físicas (IIF) and Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) in collaboration with Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), Puebla, México. The research activities of B Thomas are supported in part by NSF Grant PHY-1720430. B Tweedie was supported by DoE Grant No. DE-FG02-95ER40896 and by PITT PACC. This research is supported by the Cluster of Excellence PrecisionPhysics, Fundamental Interactions and Structure of Matter (PRISMA-EXC1098). The work of B Zaldivar was supported in part by the 'Investissements d' avenir' program of the French ANR, Labex 'ENIGMASS', and by the Programa Atraccion de Talento de la Comunidad de Madrid under Grant No. 2017-T2/TIC-5455. The work of Yongchao Zhang was partially supported by the IISN and Belgian Science Policy (IAP VII/37).

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August 19, 2023
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October 20, 2023