https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13613-9
Regular Article
Phenomenology of photons-enriched semi-visible jets
1
ETH Zürich, Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland
2
Department of Physics, Stanford University, 94305, Stanford, CA, USA
Received:
11
July
2024
Accepted:
6
November
2024
Published online:
26
November
2024
This Letter proposes a new signature for confining dark sectors at the LHC. Under the assumption of a QCD-like hidden sector, hadronic jets containing stable dark bound states originating from hidden strong dynamics, known as semi-visible jets, could manifest in proton-proton collisions. In the proposed simplified model, a heavy 
mediator coupling to SM quarks allows the resonant production of dark quarks, subsequently hadronizing in stable and unstable dark bound states. The unstable dark bound states can then decay back to SM quarks via the same portal or photons via a lighter pseudo-scalar portal (such as an axion-like particle). This mechanism creates a new signature where semi-visible jets are enriched in non-isolated photons. We show that these exotic jets evade the phase space probed by current LHC searches exploiting jets or photons due to the expected high jet neutral electromagnetic fraction and photons candidates non-isolation, respectively. In the proposed analysis strategy to tackle such signature, we exploit jets as final state objects to represent the underlying QCD-like hidden sector. We show that, by removing any selection on the neutral electromagnetic fraction from the jet identification criteria, higher signal efficiency can be reached. To enhance the signal-to-background discrimination, we train a deep neural network as a jet tagger that exploits differences in the substructure of signal and background jets. We estimate that with the available triggers for Run 2 and this new strategy, a high mass search can claim a 
discovery (exclusion) of the boson with a mass up to 5 TeV (5 TeV) with the full Run 2 data of the LHC when the fraction of unstable dark hadrons decaying to photons pairs is around 
, and with a coupling of the to SM quarks of 0.25.
© The Author(s) 2024
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Funded by SCOAP3.
