Vertex Displacements for Acausal Particles: Testing the Lee-Wick Standard Model at the LHC

EZEQUIEL ÁLVAREZ; LEANDRO DA ROLD; CARLOS SCHAT; ALEJANDRO SZYNKMAN

JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS - (Online)

SPRINGER

Año: 2009

1029-8479

We propose to search for wrong displaced vertices, where decay products of the secondary vertex move towards the primary vertex instead of away from it, as a signature for microscopic violation of causality. We analyze in detail the leptonic sector of the recently proposed Lee-Wick Standard Model, which provides a well motivated framework to study acausal effects. We find that, assuming Minimal Flavor Violation, the Lee-Wick partners of the electron, \tilde l^e and \tilde e, can produce measurable wrong vertices at the LHC, the most promising channel being q \bar q --> \bar \tilde l^e \tilde l^e --> e^+ e^- jjjj. A Monte-Carlo simulation using MadGraph/MadEvent suggests that for M_l < 450 GeV the measurement of these acausal vertex displacements should be accessible in the LHC era.