Diagnosing spin at the LHC via vector boson fusion

Abstract

We propose a new technique for determining the spin of new massive particles that might be discovered at the Large Hadron Collider. The method relies on pair-production of the new particles in a kinematic regime where the vector boson fusion production of color singlets is enhanced. For this regime, we show that the distribution of the leading jets as a function of their relative azimuthal angle can be used to distinguish spin-0 from spin-½ particles. We illustrate this effect by considering the particular cases of (i) strongly-interacting, stable particles and (ii) supersymmetric particles carrying color charge. We argue that this method should be applicable in a wide range of new physics scenarios.

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