Probing neutral triple gauge couplings at the LHC and future hadron colliders

We study probes of neutral triple gauge couplings (nTGCs) at the LHC and the proposed 100 TeV pp colliders, and compare their sensitivity reaches with those of proposed e+e- colliders. The nTGCs provide a unique window to the new physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) because they can arise from SM effective field theory operators that respect the full electroweak gauge group SU(2)L circle times U(1)Y of the SM only at the level of dimension-8 or higher. We derive the neutral triple gauge vertices (nTGVs) generated by these dimension-8 operators in the broken phase and map them onto a newly generalized form factor formulation, which takes into account only the residual U(1)em gauge symmetry. Using this mapping, we derive new nontrivial relations between the form factors that guarantee a truly consistent form factor formulation of the nTGVs and remove large unphysical energy-dependent terms. We then analyze the sensitivity reaches of the LHC and future 100 TeV hadron colliders for probing the nTGCs via both the dimension-8 nTGC operators and the corresponding nTGC form factors in the reaction pp(qq over bar ) -> Z gamma with Z -> l+l-, nu nu over bar . We compare their sensitivities with the existing LHC measurements of nTGCs and with those of the high-energy e+e- colliders. In general, we find that the prospective LHC sensitivities are comparable to those of an e+e- collider with center-of-mass energy <= 1 TeV, whereas an e+e- collider with center-of-mass energy (3-5) TeV would have greater sensitivities, and a 100 TeV pp collider could provide the most sensitive probes of the nTGCs.

Automated summary

This paper studies the detection of probes of neutral triple gauge couplings (nTGCs) at the LHC and proposed e+e- colliders, and compares their sensitivity reaches. The nTGCs provide a unique avenue to explore new physics beyond the Standard Model and can arise from SM effective field theory operators at dimension-8 or higher. The paper derives the neutral triple gauge vertices (nTGVs) generated by these operators and analyzes the sensitivity reaches of the LHC and future 100 TeV hadron colliders for probing the nTGCs. The results show that a 100 TeV pp collider could provide the most sensitive probes of the nTGCs.