Tagging Two-Photon Production at the LHC

Tagging two-photon production offers a significant extension of the LHC physics programme. Effective luminosity of high-energy gamma-gamma collisions reaches 1% of the proton-proton luminosity and the standard detector techniques used for measuring very forward proton scattering should allow for a reliable extraction of interesting two-photon interactions. Particularly exciting is a possibility of detecting two-photon exclusive Higgs boson production at the LHC.Comment: 9 pages and 4 figure

Hadronic ZγZ\gamma Production with QCD Corrections and Leptonic Decays

The process $p p \to Z \gamma + X \to \ell^- \ell^+ \gamma + X$, where $\ell$ denotes a lepton, is calculated to order $\alpha_s$. Total and differential cross sections, with acceptance cuts imposed on the leptons and photon, are given for the Tevatron and LHC center of mass energies. In general, invariant mass and angular distributions are simply scaled up in magnitude by the QCD radiative corrections, whereas in transverse momentum distributions, the QCD radiative corrections increase with the transverse momentum.Comment: 16 pages + 9 figures, UCD-94-29. A postscript version and 9 postscript figures are available via anonymous ftp to UCDHEP.UCDAVIS.EDU in the directory [.ohnemus.ucd-94-29

Exclusive W^+ + photon production in proton-antiproton collisions II: results

We present results for total cross sections, single and double differential distributions and correlations between pairs of outgoing particles in the reactions p + antip --> W^+ + photon and p + antip --> W^+ + photon + jet at sqrt(S)=1.8 TeV. Order alpha-strong QCD corrections and leading logarithm photon bremsstrahlung contributions are included in the MS-bar mass factorization scheme for three experimental scenarios: 1) 2-body inclusive production of W^+ and photon, 2) exclusive production of W^+, photon and 1 jet and 3) exclusive production of W^+ and photon with 0 jet. The latest CTEQ parton distribution functions, which fit the newly released HERA data, are used in our analysis. The dependence of our results on the mass factorization scale is used to place error bars on our predictions for the single differential distributions and correlations.Comment: 15 pages (LateX). 50 pages of postscript figures available via ftp anonymous from max.physics.sunysb.edu in the directory preprints/mendoza/EXCLUSIVE_W_GAMMA_II.dir (files named fig_*.ps) ITP-SB-93-80. ([email protected])([email protected]

Vector boson pair production at the LHC

We present phenomenological results for vector boson pair production at the LHC, obtained using the parton-level next-to-leading order program MCFM. We include the implementation of a new process in the code, pp -> \gamma\gamma, and important updates to existing processes. We incorporate fragmentation contributions in order to allow for the experimental isolation of photons in \gamma\gamma, W\gamma, and Z\gamma production and also account for gluon-gluon initial state contributions for all relevant processes. We present results for a variety of phenomenological scenarios, at the current operating energy of \sqrt{s} = 7 TeV and for the ultimate machine goal, \sqrt{s} = 14 TeV. We investigate the impact of our predictions on several important distributions that enter into searches for new physics at the LHC.Comment: 35 pages, 14 figure

ANOMALOUS GAUGE BOSON INTERACTIONS

We discuss the direct measurement of the trilinear vector boson couplings in present and future collider experiments. The major goals of such experiments will be the confirmation of the Standard Model (SM) predictions and the search for signals of new physics. We review our current theoretical understanding of anomalous trilinear gauge boson self-interactions. If the energy scale of the new physics is $\sim 1$ TeV, these low energy anomalous couplings are expected to be no larger than ${\cal O}(10^{-2})$. Constraints from high precision measurements at LEP and low energy charged and neutral current processes are critically reviewed.Comment: 53 pages with 17 embedded figures, LaTeX, uses axodraw.sty, figures available on request. The complete paper, is available at ftp://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1995/madph-95-871.ps.Z or http://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1995/madph-95-871.ps.Z Summary of the DPF Working Subgroup on Anomalous Gauge Boson Interactions of the DPF Long Range Planning Stud

Photon-Photon and Photon-Hadron Physics at Relativistic Heavy Ion Colliders

Due to the coherence of all the protons in a nucleus, there are very strong electromagnetic fields of short duration in relativistic heavy ion collisions. They give rise to quasireal photon-photon and photon-nucleus collisions with a large flux. RHIC will begin its experimental program this year and such types of collisions will be studied experimentally at the STAR detector. RHIC will have the highest flux of (quasireal) photons up to now in the GeV region. At the LHC the invariant mass range available in gamma-gamma-interactions will be of the order of 100 GeV, i.e., in the range currently available at LEP2, but with a higher gamma-gamma-luminosity. Therefore one has there also the potential to study new physics. (Quasireal) photon-hadron (i.e., photon-nucleus) interactions can be studied as well, similar to HERA, at higher invariant masses. Vector mesons can be produced coherently through photon-Pomeron and photon-meson interactions in exclusive reactions such as A+A -> A+A+V, where A is the heavy ion and V=rho,omega,phi or J/Psi.Comment: 6 pages, to be published in the proceedings of the Photon'99 conferenc

Production of a Prompt Photon in Association with Charm at Next-to-Leading Order in QCD

A second order, $O(\alpha ^2_s)$, calculation in perturbative quantum chromodynamics of the two particle inclusive cross section is presented for the reaction $p +\bar{p}\rightarrow \gamma + c + X$ for large values of the transverse momentum of the prompt photon and charm quark. The combination of analytic and Monte Carlo integration methods used here to perform phase-space integrations facilitates imposition of photon isolation restrictions and other selections of relevance in experiments. Differential distributions are provided for various observables. Positive correlations in rapidity are predicted.Comment: 27 pages in RevTex plus 14 figures in one compressed PS fil

Vector Boson Pair Production in Hadronic Collisions at Order αs\alpha_s: Lepton Correlations and Anomalous Couplings

We present cross sections for production of electroweak vector boson pairs, $WW$, $WZ$ and $ZZ$, in $p\bar{p}$ and $pp$ collisions, at next-to-leading order in $\alpha_s$. We treat the leptonic decays of the bosons in the narrow-width approximation, but retain all spin information via decay angle correlations. We also include the effects of $WWZ$ and $WW\gamma$ anomalous couplings.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, 3 table

An update on vector boson pair production at hadron colliders

We present numerical results (including full one-loop QCD corrections) for the processes p p-bar and pp -> W+ W-, W+/- Z/gamma* and Z/gamma* Z/gamma* followed by the decay of the massive vector bosons into leptons. In addition to their intrinsic importance as tests of the standard model, these processes are also backgrounds to conjectured non-standard model processes. Because of the small cross sections at the Tevatron, full experimental control of these backgrounds will be hard to achieve. This accentuates the need for up-to-date theoretical information. A comparison is made with earlier work and cross section results are presented for p p-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=2 TeV and pp collisions at sqrt{s}=14 TeV. Practical examples of the use of our calculations are presented.Comment: 18 pages, 5 embedded figures, included extra reference [7

Detection of Minimal Supersymmetric Model Higgs Bosons in \gam\gam Collisions: Influence of SUSY Decay Modes

We demonstrate that supersymmetric decay modes of the neutral Higgs bosons of the MSSM could well make their detection extremely difficult when produced singly in \gam\gam collisions at a back-scattered laser beam facility.Comment: 12 pages, requires phyzzx.tex and tables.tex, full postscript file including embedded tables available via anonymous ftp at ucdhep.ucdavis.edu as [anonymous.gunion]gamgamsusy.ps, preprint UCD-94-3