https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-026-15327-6
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
The quark-lepton portal beyond leptoquarks
1
Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, 191 W. Woodruff Avenue, 43210, Columbus, OH, USA
2
Department of Physics, Miami University, 500 E. Spring St., 45056, Oxford, OH, USA
a
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Received:
28
June
2025
Accepted:
11
January
2026
Published online:
6
February
2026
Abstract
We explore models where single new exotic states interact with the Standard Model through an asymmetric Standard Model portal with couplings to at least one quark and one lepton. All effective operators up to dimension six where such interactions couple the SM to spin 0 and spin 1/2 particles are written down, and the exotic states accessible through the portal are identified. We note interactions that couple the SM to new particles with exotic combinations of baryon and lepton numbers, states of higher electric charge, and particles with unusual SM charge, including states in higher-dimensional representations of both SU(3) and SU(2). Finally, we discuss the phenomenology of these interactions, including novel particle decays, and we classify some of the collider production modes for exotic states at the LHC, LHeC and muon colliders.
© The Author(s) 2026
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