We present a full next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to diphoton production at the hadron colliders in both standard model and ADD model. The invariant mass and rapidity distributions of the diphotons are obtained using a semi-analytical two cut-off phase space slicing method which allows for a successful numerical implementation of various kinematical cuts used in the experiments. The fragmentation photons are systematically removed using smooth-cone-isolation cuts on the photons. The NLO QCD corrections not only stabilise the perturbative predictions but also enhance the production cross section significantly.
In this paper, we present the next-to-leading order predictions for diphoton production in the ADD model, matched to the HERWIG parton shower using the MC@NLO formalism. A selection of the results is presented for d=2-6 extra dimensions, using generic cuts as well as analysis cuts mimicking the search strategies as pursued by the ATLAS and CMS experiments.
We compute to next-to-leading order in QCD the tensor unparticle contribution to the diphoton production at the LHC, wherein the unparticle sector is a consequence of (a) scale invariance but not full conformal invariance and (b) conformal invariance. We use the semi-analytical two cutoff phase space slicing method to handle the ${\cal O}(α_s)$ corrections to the $p p \to γγX$ and show that our results are insensitive to the soft and collinear cutoffs. In order to avoid the contribution of the photons due to fragmentation, we employ the smooth cone isolation criterion. Significance of the QCD …
We calculate large mass diphoton exclusive photoproduction in the framework of collinear QCD factorization at next to leading order in αs and at leading twist. Collinear divergences of the coefficient function are absorbed by the evolution of the generalized parton distributions (GPDs). This result enlarges the existing factorization proofs to 2 -> 3 processes, opening new reactions to a trustable extraction of GPDs.
In this paper we consider signal-background interference effects in Higgs-mediated diphoton production at the LHC. After reviewing earlier works that show how to use these effects to constrain the Higgs boson total decay width, we provide predictions beyond NLO accuracy for the interference and related observables, and study the impact of QCD radiative corrections on the Higgs width determination. In particular, we use the so-called soft-virtual approximation to estimate interference effects at NNLO in QCD. The inclusion of these effects reduce the NNLO prediction for the total Higgs cross-sec…
At hadron colliders, the leading production mechanism for a pair of photons is from quark-anti-quark annihilation at the tree level. However, due to large gluon-gluon luminosity, the loop-induced process $gg\to γγ$ provides a substantial contribution. In particular, the amplitudes mediated by the top quark become important at the $t \bar t$ threshold and above. In this letter we present the first complete computation of the next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections (up to $α_S^3$) to this process, including contributions from the top quark. These entail two-loop diagrams with massive propagators…
The hadroproduction of prompt isolated photon pairs at high energies is studied in the NLO* framework of the Parton Reggeization Approach. The real part of the NLO corrections is computed, and the procedure for the subtraction of double counting between real parton emissions in the hard-scattering matrix element and unintegrated PDF is constructed for the amplitudes with Reggeized quarks in the initial state. The matrix element of the important NNLO subprocess RR->2gamma with full dependence on the transverse momenta of the initial-state Reggeized gluons is obtained. We compare obtained numeri…
We present the NLO QCD corrections to the production of a photon pair in association with one jet, where the photons are stemming from graviton decay, within models of large extra dimensions. Our results for the loop amplitudes are produced with the program GOSAM for automated one-loop calculations. We show distributions for several observables for 4, 5 and 6 extra dimensions and demonstrate that the differential K-factors are far from being uniform.
We present the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of a photon pair in association with one or two jets. This class of processes constitutes an important background for Higgs physics at the LHC. For the one jet process we include photon fragmentation contributions and perform a comparison between different photon isolation criteria and various isolation parameters. The two jet calculation has been performed using a smooth cone isolation criterion. We find that the NLO QCD corrections are substantial and can lead to distortions of differential distributions.
We calculate the $gg\toγγ$ amplitude by including the $t\bar t$ bound-state effects near their mass threshold. In terms of the non-relativistic expansion of the amplitude, the LO contribution is an energy-independent term in the one-loop amplitude. We include the NLO contribution described by the non-relativistic Green function and part of the NNLO contribution. Despite a missing NLO piece which can be accomplished with the two-loop-level amplitude via massive quarks, the shape of the diphoton mass spectrum is predicted with a good accuracy. Thanks to the simple and clean nature of the observa…
We compute the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to the gluon-fusion subprocess of diphoton-plus-jet production at the LHC. We compute fully differential distributions by combining two-loop virtual corrections with one-loop real radiation using antenna subtraction to cancel infrared divergences. We observe significant corrections at NLO which demonstrate the importance of combining these corrections with the quark-induced diphoton-plus-jet channel at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO).
We present a method, based on the positive weight next-to-leading-order matching formalism (POWHEG), to simulate photon production processes at next-to-leading-order (NLO). This technique is applied to the simulation of diphoton production in hadron-hadron collisions. The algorithm consistently combines the parton shower and NLO calculation, producing only positive weight events. The simulation includes both the photon fragmentation contribution and a full implementation of the truncated shower required to correctly describe soft emissions in an angular-ordered parton shower.
We present the NLO QCD corrections to diphoton plus jet production at hadron colliders. Our calculation includes contributions from the fragmentation of a hadronic jet into a highly energetic photon, and consequently allows the implementation of arbitrary infrared-safe photon isolation definitions. We compare different photon isolation criteria and perform a detailed study of the dependence of the diphoton plus jet cross section on the photon isolation parameters.
We develop the analysis of diphoton exclusive photoproduction in the kinematics where a collinear QCD factorization framework applies, namely nearly forward large invariant mass diphoton production. We work at the leading twist level and at the next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant $α_S$. We compare our predictions for cross-sections with Born order calculations for the experimental conditions accessible to JLab experiments and show the interesting sensitivity of our results to various models of generalized parton distributions (GPDs). The NLO corrections are rather large…
We calculate the NNLO QCD corrections to diphoton production with an additional jet at the LHC. Our calculation represents the first NNLO-accurate prediction for the transverse momentum distribution of the diphoton system. The improvement in the accuracy of the theoretical prediction is significant, by a factor of up to four relative to NLO QCD. Our calculation is exact except for the finite remainder of the two-loop amplitude which is included at leading color. The numerical impact of this approximated contribution is small. The results of this work are expected to further our understanding o…
We calculate in the framework of collinear factorization the amplitude for the photoproduction of a near forward large mass diphoton at leading twist and next to leading order (NLO) in $α_s$. We demonstrate the validity of factorization at this order, which was never achieved for such a reaction where the coefficient function describes a $2 \to 3$ hard process. While the Born order amplitude was purely imaginary and only probed the $x=\pm ξ$ cross-over line of generalized parton distributions (GPD) domain, the NLO result contains both a real and an imaginary part and probes the whole domain of…
Processes with three external electroweak gauge boson allow for a measurement of triple and quartic gauge couplings. They can be used to constrain anomalous gauge couplings, where new physics might predominantly couple to electroweak gauge bosons. In this paper we chose a class of such processes where we consider two photons and an additional vector boson in the final state. As additional vector boson we consider either a third photon or a $W$ or $Z$ boson. For the latter two cases we assume a leptonic decay of the boson. We calculate the next-to-leading order QCD and electroweak corrections t…
We are interested in the transverse-momentum ($q_T$) distribution of a diphoton pair produced in hadron collisions. We resum the logarithmically-enhanced perturbative QCD contributions at small values of $q_T$ up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We consistently combine resummation with the known next-to-leading order perturbative result at intermediate and large values of $q_T$ . We include all perturbative terms up to order $α_S^2$ in our computation which, after integration over $q_T$ , reproduces the known next-to-next-to-leading order result for the diphoton pair production…
Precision measurement for the production of a $Z$-boson in association with two photons is important for investigating the Higgs boson and exploring new physics at the International Linear Collider. It could be used to study the $ZZγγ$ anomalous quartic gauge coupling. In this work we report on our calculation of the full ${\cal O} (α^4)$ contributions to the $e^+e^- \to Z γγ$ process in the standard model, and we analyze the electroweak (EW) quantum effects on the total cross section. We investigate the dependence of the $Zγγ$ production rate on the event selection scheme and provide distribu…
If the lighter top squark has no kinematically allowed two-body decays that conserve flavor, then it will live long enough to form hadronic bound states. The observation of the diphoton decays of stoponium could then provide a uniquely precise measurement of the top squark mass. In this paper, we calculate the cross section for the production of stoponium in a hadron collider at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD. We present numerical results for the cross section for production of stoponium at the LHC and study the dependence on beam energy, stoponium mass, and the renormalization and factori…
In this paper, we present results at next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD for photon pair production in association with two jets via vector boson scattering within the Standard Model (SM), and also in an effective field theory framework with anomalous gauge coupling effects via bosonic dimension-6 and 8 operators. We observe that, compared to other processes in the class of two electroweak (EW) vector boson production in association with two jets, more exclusive cuts are needed in order to suppress the SM QCD-induced background channel. As expected, the NLO QCD corrections reduce the scale uncerta…
We present a calculation of the NLO QCD corrections to the loop-induced production of a photon pair through gluon fusion, including massive top quarks at two loops. The two-loop virtual amplitudes are computed via projecting onto a set of Lorentz structures related to linear polarisation states of external gauge bosons. All two-loop master integrals dependent on the top quark mass are evaluated numerically. Matching the fixed order NLO result to a calculation with threshold resummation, we obtain an accurate description of the diphoton invariant mass spectrum around the threshold of top quark …
We consider the production of prompt-photon pairs at the LHC and we report on a study of QCD radiative corrections up to the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). We present a detailed comparison of next-to-leading order (NLO) results obtained within the standard and smooth cone isolation criteria, by studying the dependence on the isolation parameters. We highlight the role of different partonic subprocesses within the two isolation criteria, and we show that they produce large radiative corrections for both criteria. Smooth cone isolation is a consistent procedure to compute QCD radiative co…
We present results from a recent calculation of prompt photon-pair production in association with two jets to next-to-leading order (NLO) at the LHC. The virtual contribution is evaluated using the BlackHat library, a numerical implementation of on-shell methods for one-loop amplitudes, in conjunction with SHERPA. We study four sets of cuts: standard jet cuts, a set of Higgs-related cuts suggested by ATLAS, and corresponding sets which isolate the kinematic region where the process becomes the largest background to Higgs production via vector-boson fusion.
We present a calculation of the NLO QCD corrections to the loop-induced production of a photon pair through gluon fusion, including massive top quarks at two loops, where the two-loop integrals are calculated numerically. Matching the fixed-order NLO results to a threshold expansion, we obtain accurate results around the top quark pair production threshold. We analyse how the top quark threshold corrections affect distributions of the photon pair invariant mass and comment on the possibility of determining the top quark mass from precision measurements of the diphoton invariant mass spectrum.
Motivated by the excess in the diphoton production rate of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), we investigate the possibility that one of the CP-even Higgs bosons of the extra U(1) extended minimal supersymmetric standard model can give a consistent result. We scan the parameter space for a standard-model-like Higgs boson such that the mass is in the range of 124-127 GeV and the production rate σxB of the WW*, ZZ* modes are consistent with the standard model (SM) values while that of γγis enhanced relative to the SM value. We find that the SM-like Higgs boson is mostly the ligh…
Many beyond the Standard Model (BSM) scenarios involve Higgs couplings to additional electroweak fields. It is well established that these new fields may modify Higgs gamma-gamma and gamma-Z decays at one-loop. However, one unexplored aspect of such scenarios is that by electroweak symmetry one should also expect modifications to the Higgs Z-Z coupling at one-loop and, more generally, modifications to Higgs production and decay channels beyond tree-level. In this paper we investigate the full BSM modified electroweak corrections to associated Higgs production at both the LHC and a future lepto…
We discuss the 750 GeV diphoton excess at the LHC@13TeV in the framework of leptophobic U(1)$^\prime$ model inspired by $E_6$ grand unified theory (GUT). In this model, the Standard Model (SM) chiral fermions carry charges under extra U(1)$^\prime$ gauge symmetry which is spontaneously broken by a U(1)$^\prime$-charged singlet scalar ($Φ$). In addition, extra quarks and leptons are introduced to achieve the anomaly-free conditions, which is a natural consequence of the assumed $E_6$ GUT. These new fermions are vectorlike under the SM gauge group but chiral under new U(1)$^\prime$, and their ma…
Analysis of contributions from vector-like leptonic supermultiplets to the Higgs diphoton decay rate and to the Higgs boson mass is given. Corrections arising from the exchange of the new leptons and their super-partners, as well as their mirrors are computed analytically and numerically. We also study the correlation between the enhanced Higgs diphoton rate and the Higgs mass corrections. Specifically, we find two branches in the numerical analysis: on the lower branch the diphoton rate enhancement is flat while on the upper branch it has a strong correlation with the Higgs mass enhancement. …
We discuss the collider phenomenology of Universal Extra Dimension models with gravity mediated decays. We concentrate on diphoton associated with large missing transverse energy signature. At the collider, level-1 Kaluza-Klein (KK) particles are produced in pairs due to the conservation of KK-parity. Subsequently, KK-particles decay via cascades involving lighter KK-particles until reaching the lightest KK-particle (LKP). Finally, gravity induced decay of the LKP into photons gives rise to the diphoton signature. The search for diphoton events with large missing transverse energy was recently…
We interpret the 750~GeV diphoton excess recently found in the 13~TeV LHC data as a singlet scalar in an extra dimensional model, where one extra dimension is introduced. In the model, the scalar couples to multiple vector-like fermions, which are just the KK modes of SM fermions. Mediated by the loops of these vector-like fermions, the $ϕ$ effective couplings to gluons and photons can be significantly large. Therefore, it is quite easy to obtain an observed cross section for the diphoton excess. We also calculate the cross sections for other decay channels of $ϕ$, and find that this interpret…
The Higgs mass determination from diphoton events at the LHC can be affected by interference between the Higgs resonant and continuum background amplitudes with the same initial and final states. For the leading order gluon fusion process, this shift was previously found to exceed 100 MeV, with some dependence on the diphoton mass resolution and the methods used to extract and fit the peak from data. In this paper, I consider the mass shift for the process pp --> jγγ that includes an additional central jet in the final state. For cuts on the transverse momentum of the jet of 25 GeV or more, th…
We consider the possibility of interpreting the recently reported diphoton excess at 750 GeV as a spin-two massive particle (such as a Kaluza-Klein graviton in warped extra-dimensions) which serves as a mediator to Dark Matter via its gravitational couplings to the dark sector and to the Standard Model (SM). We model non-universal couplings of the resonance to gauge bosons in the SM and to Dark Matter as a function on their localization in the extra dimension. We find that scalar, fermion or vector dark matter can saturate the dark matter relic density by the annihilation of dark matter into a…
In this paper, we revisit a visible heavy QCD axion model in light of the recent reports on the $750$ GeV diphoton resonance by the ATLAS and CMS experiments. In this model, the axion is made heavy with the help of the mirror copied sector of the Standard Model while the successful Peccei-Quinn mechanism is kept intact. We identify the $750$ GeV resonance as the scalar boson associated with spontaneous breaking of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry which mainly decays into a pair of the axions. We find that the mixings between the axion and $η$ and $η'$ play important roles in its decays and the result…
The recent ATLAS and CMS diphoton resonance excesses are explored in a simple $U(1)$ gauge theory extension of the Standard Model where the resonance is the Higgs boson of the $U(1)$ symmetry breaking, $ϕ$. This particle couples to exotic quarks which, through loops, can produce a large enough rate to explain the excess. Due to the choice of $U(1)$ charges, flavor constraints are naturally suppressed, allowing arbitrary flavor violation in the decays of the new quarks to up-type quarks, modifying their signal topologies. An additional heavy quark in the model decays to the lighter exotic quark…
We consider axion-mediated dark matter models motivated by Fermi gamma ray line at 130 GeV, where anomaly interactions of an axion-like scalar mediate a singlet Dirac fermion dark matter (DM) to electroweak gauge bosons. In these models, extra vector-like leptons generate anomaly interactions for the axion and can also couple to the SM Higgs boson to modify the Higgs-to-diphoton rate. We can distinguish models by the branching fraction of the DM annihilation into a photon pair, favoring the model with a triplet fermion. From the condition that the lighter charged extra lepton must be heavier t…
We propose that the diphoton resonance signal indicated by the recent LHC data might also arise from the pair productions of vector-like heavy down-type quarks with mass around $750$ GeV and above. The vector-like quark decays into an ordinary light quark and a Standard Model singlet scalar. The subsequent decay of scalar singlet produces the diphoton excess. Both the vector-like quark and singlet scalars appear naturally in the $E_6$, and their masses can be in the TeV scale with a suitable choice of symmetry breaking pattern. The prediction of such a proposal would be to see an accompanying …
We present bounds on all the known universal extra dimension models from the latest Higgs search data at the Large Hadron Collider, taking into account the Kaluza-Klein (KK) loop effects on the dominant gluon-fusion production and on the diphoton/digluon decay. The lower bound on the KK scale is from 500GeV to 1TeV depending on the model. We find that the Higgs production cross section with subsequent diphoton decay can be enhanced by a factor 1.5 within this experimental bound, with little dependence on the Higgs mass in between 115GeV and 130GeV. We also show that in such a case the Higgs de…
A radion in a scenario with a warped extra dimension can be lighter than the Higgs boson, even if the Kaluza-Klein excitation modes of the graviton turn out to be in the multi-TeV region. The discovery of such a light radion would be gateway to new physics. We show how the two-photon mode of decay can enable us to probe a radion in the mass range 60 - 110 GeV. We take into account the diphoton background, including fragmentation effects, and include cuts designed to suppress the background to the maximum possible extent. Our conclusion is that, with an integrated luminosity of 3000 $\rm fb^{-1…
We analyze the potentiality of hadron colliders to search for large extra dimensions via the production of photon pairs. The virtual exchange of Kaluza--Klein gravitons can significantly enhance this processes provided the quantum gravity scale ($M_S$) is in the TeV range. We studied in detail the subprocesses $q \bar{q} \to γγ$ and $g g \to γγ$ taking into account the complete Standard Model and graviton contributions as well as the unitarity constraints. We show that the Tevatron Run II will be able to probe $M_S$ up to 1.5--1.9 TeV at 2$σ$ level, while the LHC can extend this search to 5.3-…
We consider scenarios of warped extra-dimensions with all matter fields in the bulk and in which both the hierarchy and the flavor puzzles of the Standard Model are addressed. The simplest extra dimensional extension of the Standard Model Higgs sector, i.e a 5D bulk Higgs doublet, can be a natural and simple explanation to the 750 GeV excess of diphotons hinted at the LHC, with the resonance responsible for the signal being the lightest CP odd excitation coming from the Higgs sector. No new matter content is invoked, the only new ingredient being the presence of (positive) brane localized kine…
In the framework of the large extra dimensions (LED) model, we investigate the effects induced by the Kaluza-Klein (KK) gravitons up to the QCD next-to-leading order (NLO) on the $W$-pair production followed by a subsequential $W$-decay at the CERN LHC. We depict the regions in the $\mathcal{L}-M_{S}$ parameter space where the LED effect can and cannot be observed from the analyses of the $pp \to W^+W^- + X$ and $pp \to W^+W^- \to W^{\pm}l^{\mp}\stackrel{(-)}ν + X$ processes. We find that the ability of probing the LED effects can be improved by taking the cutoffs for the invariant mass of $W$…
The recently observed diphoton anomaly at the LHC appears to suggest the presence of a rather broad resonance. In this note, it is pointed out that this does not hold if the two photons are produced along with an extra state. Specifically, the diphoton invariant mass arising from various $A \to Bγγ$ processes, with $A,B$ being scalars, fermions, or vectors, though peaked at a rather large value, would naturally be broad and could fit rather well the observed deviations. This interpretation has a number of advantages over the two-photon resonance hypothesis, for example with respect to the comp…
A new heavy resonance may be observable at the LHC if it has a significant decay branching fraction into a pair of photons. We entertain this possibility by looking at the modest excess in the diphoton invariant mass spectrum around 750 GeV recently reported in the ATLAS and CMS experiments. Assuming that it is a spinless boson, dubbed $\tilde s$, we consider it within a model containing two weak scalar doublets having zero vacuum expectation values and a scalar singlet in addition to the doublet responsible for breaking the electroweak symmetry. The model also possesses three Dirac neutral si…
The sensitivities to anomalous quartic photon couplings at the Large Hadron Collider are estimated using diphoton production via photon fusion. The tagging of the protons proves to be a very powerful tool to suppress the background and unprecedented sensitivities down to $6 \cdot 10^{-15}$\gev$^{-4}$ are obtained, providing a new window on extra dimensions and strongly-interacting composite states in the multi-TeV range. Generic contributions to quartic photon couplings from charged and neutral particles with arbitrary spin are also presented.
We argue that extensions of the Standard Model (SM) with a warped extra dimension, which successfully address the hierarchy and flavor problems of elementary particle physics, can provide an elegant explanation of the 750 GeV diphoton excess recently reported by ATLAS and CMS. A gauge-singlet bulk scalar with ${\cal O}(1)$ couplings to fermions is identified as the new resonance $S$, and the vector-like Kaluza-Klein excitations of the SM quarks and leptons mediate its loop-induced couplings to photons and gluons. The electroweak gauge symmetry almost unambiguously dictates the bulk matter cont…
The ATLAS and CMS collaborations recently recorded possible di-photon excess at 750 GeV and a less significant di-boson excess around 1.9 TeV. Such excesses may be produced in heterotic-string derived Z' models, where the di-photon excess may be connected with the Standard Model singlet scalar responsible for the Z' symmetry breaking, whereas the di-boson excess arises from production of the extra vector boson. Additional vector-like states in the string Z' model are instrumental to explain the relatively large width of the di-photon events and mandated by anomaly cancellation to be in the vic…
An NLO QCD analysis of the final HERMES data on pion multiplicities is presented and a new set of pion fragmentation functions is extracted from the best fit to the data. We have studied the so-called [x,z] and [Q^2,z] presentations of their data, as given by HERMES, which, in principle, should simply be two different ways of presenting the experimental data. We have based our extraction on an excellent fit to the [Q^2,z] presentation of the data. We also draw attention to what appears to be a problem with the [x,z] presentation of the HERMES data.
