We present a new methodology that is able to yield a simultaneous determination of the Parton Distribution Functions (PDFs) of the proton alongside any set of parameters that determine the theory predictions; whether within the Standard Model (SM) or beyond it. The SIMUnet methodology is based on an extension of the NNPDF4.0 neural network architecture, which allows the addition of an extra layer to simultaneously determine PDFs alongside an arbitrary number of such parameters. We illustrate its capabilities by simultaneously fitting PDFs with a subset of Wilson coefficients within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory framework and show how the methodology extends naturally to larger subsets of Wilson coefficients and to other SM precision parameters, such as the strong coupling constant or the heavy quark masses.
We study the impact of anomalous gauge boson and fermion couplings on the production of $W^+W^-$ pairs at potential future LHC upgrades and estimate the sensitivity at $\sqrt{S}=14$ TeV with $3~ab^{-1}$ and $\sqrt{S}=27$ TeV with $15~ab^{-1}$. A general technique for including NLO QCD effects in effective field theory (EFT) fits to kinematic distributions is presented, and numerical results are given for $\sqrt{S}=13$ TeV $W^+W^-$ production. Our method allows fits to anomalous couplings at NLO accuracy in any EFT basis and has been implemented in a publicly available version of the POWHEG-BOX…
We present the latest results from the MasterCode Collaboration on supersymmetric models, in particular on the CMSSM, the NUHM1, the NUHM2 and the pMSSM. We combine the data from LHC Run I with astrophysical observables, flavor and electroweak precision observables. We determine the best fit regions of these models and analyze the discovery potential of squarks and gluinos at LHC Run II and direct detection experiments.
We present preliminary results of the first convergent global fits of several minimal composite Higgs models. Our fits are performed using the differential evolution optimisation package $\texttt{Diver}$. A variety of physical constraints are taken into account, including a wide range of exclusion bounds on heavy resonance production from Run 2 of the LHC. As a by-product of the fits, we analyse the collider phenomenology of the lightest new up-type and down-type resonances in the viable regions of our models, finding some low-mass resonances that can be probed in future collider searches.
An important tool for interpreting LHC searches for new physics are simplified models. They are characterized by a small number of parameters and thus often rely on a simplified description of particle production and decay dynamics. We compare the interpretation of current LHC searches for hadronic jets plus missing energy signatures within simplified models with the interpretation within complete supersymmetric and same-spin models of quark partners. We found that the differences between the mass limits derived from a simplified model and from the complete models are moderate given the curren…
There have been recent updates to the three global PDF fits (CT, MSHT and NNPDF), all adding large amounts of data from the LHC, and this has resulted in significant changes to the global PDFs. Given the impact that the new PDFs will have on physics comparisons at the LHC, it is crucial to perform a benchmarking among the PDFs, similar in spirit to that which was carried out for PDF4LHC15, widely used for LHC physics. In this article we detail a benchmarking comparison of three global PDF sets - CT18, MSHT20 and NNPDF3.1 - and their similarities and differences that have been observed. The end…
We provide an update of the global fits of the couplings of the 125.5 GeV Higgs boson using all publicly available experimental results from Run-1 of the LHC as per Summer 2014. The fits are done by means of the new public code Lilith 1.0. We present a selection of results given in terms of signal strengths, reduced couplings, and for the Two-Higgs-Doublet Models of Type I and II.
Numerous papers have appeared recently showing fits to transverse momentum ($p_T$) spectra measured at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in proton - proton collisions.This talk focuses on the fits extending to very large values of the transverse momentum with $p_T$ values up to 200 GeV/c as measured by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.9 and 7 TeV. A thermodynamically consistent form of the Tsallis distribution is used for fitting the transverse momentum spectra at mid-rapidity. The fits based on the proposed distribution provide an excellent description over 14 orders of magnit…
We update the global fit to electroweak precision observables, including the effect of the latest measurements at hadron colliders of the $W$ and top-quark masses and the effective leptonic weak mixing angle. We comment on the impact of these measurements in terms of constraints on new physics. We also update the bounds derived from the fit to the Higgs-boson signal strengths, including the observables measured at the LHC Run 2, and compare the improvements with respect to the 7 and 8 TeV results.
We study the potential of future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) data to probe four-fermion operators in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT). The ability to perform measurements with both polarized electron and proton beams at the EIC provides a powerful tool that can disentangle the effects from different SMEFT operators. We compare the potential constraints from an EIC with those obtained from Drell-Yan data at the Large Hadron Collider. We show that EIC data plays an important complementary role since it probes combinations of Wilson coefficients not accessible through available D…
A thorough understanding of PDFs and their uncertainties is important for the LHC and for future collider experiments. The recently released NNPDF3.0 set was presented alongside results from closure tests, where PDF fits were performed on pseudo-data generated from a chosen input PDF set. The results there demonstrate the validity of the NNPDF methodology and also provide some information about different contributions to the PDF uncertainties. Here I present a number of additional closure test results, specifically an investigation into the effect of using cross-validation in the fits, and an …
Depending on the assumptions on the power corrections to the exclusive b -> s l+ l- decays, the latest data of the LHCb collaboration - based on the 3 fb^-1 data set and on two different experimental analysis methods - still shows some tensions with the SM predictions. We present a detailed analysis of the theoretical inputs and various global fits to all the available b -> s l+ l- data. This constitutes the first global analysis of the new data of the LHCb collaboration based on the hypothesis that these tensions can be at least partially explained by new physics contributions. In our model-i…
There are some slight tensions with the SM predictions within the latest LHCb measurements. Besides the known anomaly in one angular observable of the rare decay B -> K* mu+ mu-, another small discrepancy recently occurred. The ratio R_K = BR(B+ -> K+ mu+ mu-) / BR(B+ -> K+ e+ e-) in the low-q^2 region has been measured by LHCb showing a 2.6 sigma deviation from the SM prediction. In contrast to the anomaly in the rare decay B -> K* mu+ mu- which is affected by power corrections, the ratio R_K is theoretically rather clean. We analyse all the b -> s ll data with global fits and in particular e…
We present the results of a PDF fit to differential top quark production within the MMHT framework. We in particular consider ATLAS data in the lepton + jet and dilepton channels and CMS data in the lepton + jet channel, at 8 TeV. While the fit quality to the ATLAS dilepton data is good, for the CMS case we see some issues in achieving a good fit quality for certain distributions. However, we focus on the ATLAS lepton + jet data, for which correlations of the statistical and systematic errors are provided across the four relevant distributions for PDF determination, namely $p_T^t$, $M_{tt}$, $…
We study the inclusion of $\mathcal O(1/Λ^4)$ effects in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory in fits to the current Drell-Yan data at the LHC. Our analysis includes the full set of dimension-6 and dimension-8 operators contributing to the dilepton process, and is performed to next-to-leading-order in the QCD coupling constant at both $\mathcal O(1/Λ^2)$ and $\mathcal O(1/Λ^4)$. We find that the inclusion of dimension-6 squared terms and certain dimension-8 operators has significant effects on fits to the current data. Neglecting them leads to bounds on dimension-6 operators off by large …
A precise knowledge of the quark and gluon structure of the proton, encoded by the parton distribution functions (PDFs), is of paramount importance for the interpretation of high-energy processes at present and future lepton-hadron and hadron-hadron colliders. Motivated by recent progress in the PDF determinations carried out by the CT, MSHT, and NNPDF groups, we present an updated combination of global PDF fits: PDF4LHC21. It is based on the Monte Carlo combination of the CT18, MSHT20, and NNPDF3.1 sets followed by either its Hessian reduction or its replica compression. Extensive benchmark s…
We present results from a detailed assessment of the ultimate constraining power of LHC data on the PDFs that can be expected from the complete dataset, in particular after the High-Luminosity (HL) phase. To achieve this, HL-LHC pseudo-data for different projections of the experimental uncertainties are generated, and the resulting constraints on the PDF4LHC15 set are quantified by means of the Hessian profiling method. We find that HL-LHC measurements can reduce PDF uncertainties by up to a factor of 2 to 4 in comparison to state-of-the-art fits, leading to few-percent uncertainties for impor…
We show that the right-handed (RH) sneutrino in the NMSSM can account for the observed excess in the Fermi-LAT spectrum of gamma rays from the Galactic Centre, while fulfilling all the current experimental constraints from the LHC as well as from direct and indirect dark matter searches. We have explored the parameter space of this scenario, computed the gamma ray spectrum for each phenomenologically viable solution and then performed a chi^2 fit to the excess. Unlike previous studies based on model independent interpretations, we have taken into account the full annihilation spectrum, without…
Achieving the highest precision for theoretical predictions at the LHC requires the calculation of hard-scattering cross-sections that include perturbative QCD corrections up to (N)NNLO and electroweak (EW) corrections up to NLO. Parton distribution functions (PDFs) need to be provided with matching accuracy, which in the case of QED effects involves introducing the photon parton distribution of the proton, $xγ(x,Q^2)$. In this work a determination of the photon PDF from fits to recent ATLAS measurements of high-mass Drell-Yan dilepton production at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV is presented. This analysis…
The Two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM) is one of the most studied extensions of the Standard Model. Like the other popular "New Physics" models, it gets more and more constrained by recent experimental progress, especially by the LHC data. For the 2HDM types I and II with a softly broken $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry, I present updated results of global analyses obtained with the open-source HEPfit code, emphasizing the impact of the pre-EPS-HEP 2017 LHC data. Furthermore, I discuss the status of implementation into HEPfit of 2HDM's beyond the conventional $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetric types.
In this contribution, we review the results of the recent paper "The photon PDF from high-mass Drell Yan data at the LHC" (arXiv:1701.08553), where a determination of the photon PDF from fits to recent ATLAS measurements of high-mass Drell-Yan dilepton production at centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV is presented.
In this talk we discuss recent results on the impact of LHC jet data on global fits of parton distribution functions using theoretical predictions at NNLO in QCD supplemented by electroweak (EW) corrections.
We consider a selection of recent experimental results on electroweak $W^{\pm},\,Z$ gauge boson production in $pp$ collisions at BNL RHIC and CERN LHC energies in comparison to prediction of perturbative QCD calculations based on different sets of NLO parton distribution functions including the statistical PDF model known from fits to the DIS data. We show that the current statistical PDF parameterisation (fitted to the DIS data only) underestimates the LHC data on $W^{\pm},\,Z$ gauge boson production cross sections at the NLO by about 20\%. This suggests that there is a need to refit the para…
We explore the impact of Renormalisation Group (RG) effects in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) interpretations of LHC measurements. We implement the RG running and mixing for the Wilson coefficients as obtained from the one-loop anomalous dimension matrix in the SMEFT into a Monte Carlo generator. This allows to consistently predict and combine in global fits collider observables characterised by different scales. As a showcase, we examine the impact of RG running in the strong coupling on the SMEFT predictions for $t \bar t$ production cross sections and differential distrib…
The studies of the Higgs boson couplings based on the recent and upcoming LHC data open up a new window on physics beyond the Standard Model. In this paper, we propose a statistical guide to the consistent treatment of the theoretical uncertainties entering the Higgs rate fits. Both the Bayesian and frequentist approaches are systematically analysed in a unified formalism. We present analytical expressions for the marginal likelihoods, useful to implement simultaneously the experimental and theoretical uncertainties. We review the various origins of the theoretical errors (QCD, EFT, PDF, produ…
We show how to account for correlations between theoretical uncertainties incorporated in parton distribution function (PDF) fits, and the theoretical uncertainties in the predictions made using these PDFs. We demonstrate by explicit calculations, both analytical and numerical, that these correlations can lead to corrections to the central values of the predictions, and reductions in both the PDF uncertainties and the theoretical uncertainties in the prediction. We illustrate our results with predictions for top production rapidity distributions and the Higgs total cross-section at the LHC, us…
The strong coupling constant $α_s$ and the heavy-quark masses, $m_c$, $m_b$, $m_t$ are extracted simultaneosly with the parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the updated ABM12 fit including recent data from CERN-SPS, HERA, Tevatron, and the LHC. The values of \begin{eqnarray} \nonumber α_s(M_Z)&=&0.1147\pm0.0008~({\rm exp.)},\\ \nonumber m_c(m_c)&=&1.252\pm 0.018~({\rm exp.})~{\rm GeV},\\ \nonumber m_b(m_b)&=&3.83\pm0.12~({\rm exp.})~{\rm GeV},\\ \nonumber m_t(m_t)&=&160.9\pm1.1~({\rm exp.})~{\rm GeV} \end{eqnarray} are obtained with the $\overline{MS}$ heavy-quark mass definition being empl…
We review elastic and diffractive scattering of protons (called also "forward physics") with emphasis on the LHC data, especially those deviating from the expectations based on extrapolations from earlier measurements at the ISR, Fermilab and thus triggering searches for new ideas, models and theories. We list these new data and provide a brief introduction of available theoretical approaches, mainly those based on analyticity, crossing symmetry and unitarity, particularly the Regge-pole model realizing these concepts. Fits to the data are presented and tensions between theoretical predictions…
It is important to check if the Froissaron-Maximal Odderon (FMO) approach is the only model in agreement with the LHC data. We therefore generalized the FMO approach by relaxing the $\ln^2s$ constraints both in the even-and odd-under-crossing amplitude. We show that, in spite of a considerable freedom of a large class of amplitudes, the best fits bring us back to the maximality of strong interaction. Moreover, if we leave Odderon Regge pole intercept $α_O(0)$ completely free we find a very good solution for $α_O(0)$ near -1 in agreement with the result of oddballs spectroscopy in QCD based on …
