1,721,133 research outputs found
Leptons in the proton
As is the case for all light coloured Standard Model particles, also photons and charged leptons appear as constituents in ultrarelativistic hadron beams, and admit a parton density function (PDF). It has been shown recently that the photon PDF can be given in terms of the structure functions and form factors for electron-proton scattering. The same holds for lepton PDFs. In the present work we set up a calculation of the lepton PDFs at next-to-leading order, using the same data input needed in the photon case. A precise knowledge of the lepton densities allows us to study lepton-initiated processes even at a hadron collider, with all possible combinations of same-charge, opposite-charge, same-flavour, different-flavour leptons and leptons-quarks, most of which cannot be realized in any other forseable experiment. The lepton densities in the proton are extremely small, so that their contribution to Standard Model processes is generally shadowed by processes initiated by coloured partons. We will show, however, that there are cases where these processes can be relevant, giving rise to rare Standard Model signatures and to new production channels, that can enlarge the discovery potential of New Physics at the LHC and future high energy colliders with hadrons in the initial state
Lepton-Quark Collisions at the Large Hadron Collider
Processes commonly studied at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are induced by quarks and gluons inside the protons of the LHC beams. In this Letter, we demonstrate that, since protons also contain leptons, it is possible to target lepton-induced processes at the LHC as well. In particular, by picking a lepton from one beam and a quark from the other beam, we present for the first time a comprehensive analysis of resonant single leptoquark (LQ) production at a hadron collider. In the case of minimal scalar LQs, we derive novel bounds that arise from the LHC Run II considering all possible flavor combinations of an electron or a muon and an up (u), a down (d), a strange, or a charm quark. For the flavor combinations with a u or a d quark, the obtained limits represent the most stringent constraints to date on LQs of this type. The prospects of our method at future LHC runs are also explored. Given the discovery reach of the proposed LQ signature, we argue that dedicated resonance searches in final states featuring a single light lepton and a single light-flavor jet should be added to the exotics search canon of both the ATLAS and the CMS Collaborations
Photon and leptons induced processes at the LHC
We study a few basic photon- and lepton-initiated processes at the LHC which can be computed using the recently developed photon and lepton parton densities. First, we consider the production of a massive scalar particle initiated by lepton-antilepton annihilation and photon-photon fusion as representative examples of searches of exotic particles. Then we study lepton-lepton scattering, since this Standard-Model process may be observable at the LHC. We examine these processes at leading and next-to-leading order and, using the POWHEG method, we match our calculations to parton shower programs that implement the required lepton or photon initial-states. We assess the typical size of cross-sections and their uncertainties and discuss the preferred choices for the factorization scale. These processes can also be computed starting directly from the lepto-production hadronic tensor, leading to a result where some collinear-enhanced QED corrections are missing, but all strong corrections are included. Thus, we are in the unique position to perform a comparison of results obtained via the factorization approach to a calculation that does not have strong corrections. This is particularly relevant in the case of lepton-scattering, that is more abundant at lower energies where it is affected by larger strong corrections. We thus compute this process also with the hadronic-tensor method, and compare the results with those obtained with POWHEG. Finally, for some lepton-lepton scattering processes, we compare the size of the signal to the main quark-induced background, which is double Drell-Yan production, and outline a preliminary search strategy to enhance the signal to background ratio
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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