Eur. Phys. J. C (2013) 73: 2313
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-013-2313-1

Special Article - Tools for Experiment and Theory

Ascertaining the spin for new resonances decaying into at hadron colliders

¹ Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
² Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, ul. Hoża 69, Warsaw, Poland
³ Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science, Jagellonian University, Reymonta 4, 30-059, Kraków, Poland
⁴ Institute of Nuclear Physics, PAN, ul. Radzikowskiego 152, Kraków, Poland
⁵ CERN PH-TH, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland

^* e-mail: jan.kalinowski@fuw.edu.pl

Received: 31 December 2012
Revised: 31 January 2013
Published online: 13 February 2013

Abstract

Evidence of a new particle with mass ∼125 GeV decaying into a pair of tau leptons at the Large Hadron Collider spurs interest in ascertaining its spin in this channel. Here we present a comparative study between spin-0 and spin-2 nature of this new particle, using spin correlations and decay product directions. The TauSpinner algorithm is used to re-weight distributions from sample to simulate a spin-2 state exchange. The method is based on supplementing the Standard Model matrix elements with those arising from presence of a new interaction. Studies with simulated samples demonstrate the discrimination power between these spin hypotheses based on data collected at the Large Hadron Collider.