Echoes of a hidden valley at hadron colliders

Abstract

We consider examples of "hidden-valley" models, in which a new confining gauge group is added to the standard model. Such models often arise in string constructions, and elsewhere. The resulting (electrically-neutral) bound states can have low masses and long lifetimes, and could be observed at the LHC and Tevatron. Production multiplicities are often large. Final states with heavy flavor are common; lepton pairs, displaced vertices and/or missing energy are possible. Accounting for LEP constraints, we find LHC production cross-sections typically in the 1–100 fb range, though they can be larger. It is possible the Higgs boson could be discovered at the Tevatron through rare decays to the new particles.

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