Vertex displacements for acausal particles: testing the Lee-Wick standard model at the LHC

EZEQUIEL ÁLVAREZ, LEANDRO DA ROLD, CARLOS SCHAT, ALEJANDRO SZYNKMAN D

JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS

SPRINGER

Lugar: Trieste; Año: 2009 vol. 10 p. 2301 - 23025

1126-6708

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, $\tilde\ell^e$ and $\tilde e$, can produce measurable wrong vertices at the LHC, the most promising channel being $q\bar q \to \tilde \ell^e \bar{\tilde{\ell}^e\to e^+e^-jjjj$. A Monte-Carlo simulation using MadGraph/MadEvent suggests that for $M_{\ell}\lesssim 450$ GeV the measurement of these acausal vertex displacements should be accessible in the LHC era.