Simulating glueball production in Nf=0 QCD

In an SU(Nc) gauge theory with zero light quark flavors Nf = 0, the only hadronic states that form below the confinement scale are composite gluon states called glueballs. These minimal confining sectors arise in many hidden valley extensions of the Standard Model, including scenarios that could hold the solution to the dark matter question and the hierarchy problem. Quantitative study of dark glueball phenomenology requires an understanding of pure glue hadronization, which to date is severely lacking. In this work we show that significant progress can be made by combining a perturbative pure glue parton shower with a self-consistent and physically motivated parametrization of the unknown nonperturbative physics, thanks to the modest hierarchy between the glueball mass and the confinement scale. We make our simulation code available as the public GlueShower package, the first glueball generator for hidden valley theories, and perform preliminary studies of several glueball production observables, with theoretical uncertainties that take the full range of possible hadronization scenarios into account. We hope this will enable new studies of dark sector phenomenology that were previously inaccessible.

Automated summary

This article highlights the importance of glueballs formed in an SU(Nc) gauge theory with zero light quark flavors and discusses the significance of related research for hidden valley theories and dark matter, among other fields.