CMS logoCMS event Hgg
Compact Muon Solenoid
LHC, CERN

CMS-PAS-FTR-18-007
Projection of the Mono-Z search for dark matter to the HL-LHC
Abstract: A study of the expected discovery sensitivity and exclusion power of a search for new invisible particles in events with a Z boson and missing transverse momentum at the high-luminosity LHC is presented. Sensitivity estimates are derived from a CMS Run 2 result with the use of rescaling techniques. Different scenarios of integrated luminosity and systematic uncertainties are explored, and results are presented in the parameter space of a simplified model of dark matter production with a spin-1 mediator, as well as a simplified model with a pseudoscalar mediator and second Higgs doublet.
$ \textit{This document has been revised with respect to the version dated October 22, 2018.}$
Figures & Tables Summary References CMS Publications
Figures

png pdf
Figure 1:
Representative leading-order Feynman diagrams of the signal processes in the simplified model with a vector mediator $Z'$ and DM candidate $\chi $ (left), as well as the a+2HDM model (right). In the case of the a+2HDM scenario, box diagrams without a heavy scalar particle are also taken into account, but give a sub-dominant contribution in the parameter range of interest.

png pdf
Figure 1-a:
Representative leading-order Feynman diagram of the signal process in the simplified model with a vector mediator $Z'$ and DM candidate $\chi $.

png pdf
Figure 1-b:
Representative leading-order Feynman diagram of the signal process in the a+2HDM model. Box diagrams without a heavy scalar particle are also taken into account, but give a sub-dominant contribution in the parameter range of interest.

png pdf
Figure 2:
Spectrum of $ {p_{{\mathrm {T}}} ^\text {miss}} $ in the signal region. The summed background spectrum is overlaid with the spectra for two signal hypotheses. The uncertainty bands for the background prediction correspond to the YR18 uncertainty scenario described in the text and are shown both before and after applying a background-only maximum-likelihood fit to the Asimov dataset in signal and control regions ("prefit'' and "postfit'', respectively).

png pdf
Figure 3:
Expected discovery significance (left) and signal strength exclusion limits (right) for the vector-mediated DM signal as a function of $ \mathcal{L}_{{\mathrm {int}}} $ and for different values of the mediator mass. The results are shown for the three systematic uncertainty scenarios described in the text, with the scenario labeled as "Run 2'' corresponding to Ref. [4]. The significance is calculated for unity signal strength.

png pdf
Figure 3-a:
Expected discovery significance for the vector-mediated DM signal as a function of $ \mathcal{L}_{{\mathrm {int}}} $ and for different values of the mediator mass. The results are shown for the three systematic uncertainty scenarios described in the text, with the scenario labeled as "Run 2'' corresponding to Ref. [4]. The significance is calculated for unity signal strength.

png pdf
Figure 3-b:
Signal strength exclusion limits for the vector-mediated DM signal as a function of $ \mathcal{L}_{{\mathrm {int}}} $ and for different values of the mediator mass. The results are shown for the three systematic uncertainty scenarios described in the text, with the scenario labeled as "Run 2'' corresponding to Ref. [4].

png pdf
Figure 4:
Exclusion sensitivity for the couplings $ {g_{q}} $ (left) and $ {g_{DM}} $ (right) in the vector-mediated DM scenario as a function of $ \mathcal{L}_{{\mathrm {int}}} $ and for different values of the mediator mass. The results are shown for the three systematic uncertainty scenarios described in the text, with the scenario labeled as "Run 2'' corresponding to Ref. [4]. Note that no limit can be set if the sensitivity for a given point is too low. For increasing values of $ {g_{q}} $ and $ {g_{DM}} $, the product of cross section and branching fraction eventually reaches a plateau and does not increase further with an increase in one of the couplings. Due to this effect, no coupling limits can be set for $m_{{\mathrm {med}}} = $ 2 TeV.

png pdf
Figure 4-a:
Exclusion sensitivity for the $ {g_{q}} $ coupling in the vector-mediated DM scenario as a function of $ \mathcal{L}_{{\mathrm {int}}} $ and for different values of the mediator mass. The results are shown for the three systematic uncertainty scenarios described in the text, with the scenario labeled as "Run 2'' corresponding to Ref. [4]. Note that no limit can be set if the sensitivity for a given point is too low. For increasing values of $ {g_{q}} $ and $ {g_{DM}} $, the product of cross section and branching fraction eventually reaches a plateau and does not increase further with an increase in one of the couplings. Due to this effect, no coupling limits can be set for $m_{{\mathrm {med}}} = $ 2 TeV.

png pdf
Figure 4-b:
Exclusion sensitivity for the $ {g_{DM}} $ coupling in the vector-mediated DM scenario as a function of $ \mathcal{L}_{{\mathrm {int}}} $ and for different values of the mediator mass. The results are shown for the three systematic uncertainty scenarios described in the text, with the scenario labeled as "Run 2'' corresponding to Ref. [4]. Note that no limit can be set if the sensitivity for a given point is too low. For increasing values of $ {g_{q}} $ and $ {g_{DM}} $, the product of cross section and branching fraction eventually reaches a plateau and does not increase further with an increase in one of the couplings. Due to this effect, no coupling limits can be set for $m_{{\mathrm {med}}} = $ 2 TeV.

png pdf
Figure 5:
Expected 95% CL exclusion limits on the signal strength of vector-mediated DM production in the plane of mediator and dark matter masses. The results are shown for the three systematic uncertainty scenarios described in the text, with the scenario labeled as "Run 2'' corresponding to Ref. [4]. The $ m_{{\mathrm {med}}} =2\times m_{{\mathrm {DM}}} $ diagonal, which is the kinematic boundary for decay of an on-shell mediator to DM particles, is indicated as a grey line. The white line indicates parameter combinations for which the observed DM relic density in the universe can be reproduced [32]. Points below (above) this line have relic densities that are larger (smaller) than the observed value of $\Omega h^{2} = $ 0.12 [33].

png pdf
Figure 6:
Expected 95% CL exclusion limits on the signal strength in the a+2HDM scenario as a function of the mass of the main DM mediator a and the masses of the H and A bosons $ m_{{\mathrm {{\textrm {H}}}}} = m_{{\mathrm {{\textrm {A}}}}} $. The results are shown for the three systematic uncertainty scenarios described in the text, with the scenario labeled as "Run 2'' corresponding to Ref. [4]. The grey line indicates the kinematic boundary $ m_{{\mathrm {{\textrm {H}}}}} = m_{{\mathrm {{\textrm {a}}}}} + m_{{\mathrm {{\textrm {Z}}}}} $, below which the $ {\textrm {H}} \rightarrow {\textrm {a}} {\textrm {Z}} $ decay is prohibited for an on-shell H and the sensitivity of this search is limited.
Tables

png pdf
Table 1:
Requirements for the signal region selection. The requirements fall in three categories: Lepton selection, vetoes based on the multiplicities of hadronic objects, dilepton candidate selection, and high-$ {p_{{\mathrm {T}}} ^\text {miss}} $ back-to-back topology requirements. The requirements are identical to those of Ref. [4], except for the $ {p_{{\mathrm {T}}} ^\text {miss}} $ requirement, which has been increased to remove increased background contributions at low $ {p_{{\mathrm {T}}} ^\text {miss}} $ due to degraded $ {p_{{\mathrm {T}}} ^\text {miss}} $ resolution at high PU. Jets are clustered using the anti-$ k_{{\mathrm {T}}} $ algorithm [22] implemented in the FastJet program [23] with a radius parameter of 0.4. Bottom quark jets are identified using the CSVv2 algorithm [24]. The dilepton angular separation is defined as $ {\Delta R} =\sqrt {(\eta (\ell _{1}) - \eta (\ell _{2}))^{2} + (\phi (\ell _{1}) - \phi (\ell _{2}))^{2}}$.
Summary
A sensitivity study for a search for dark matter (DM) particles in events with a Z boson and missing transverse momentum at the HL-LHC has been presented. The effects of the increase in integrated luminosity and center-of-mass energy, as well as the impact of changing experimental conditions and expected future improvements in the size of systematic uncertainties are taken into account. Assuming an integrated luminosity of 3 ab$^{-1}$, it will be possible to probe vector-mediated DM production up to values of the mediator mass of approximately 1.5 TeV. In a simplified model with a second Higgs doublet and a pseudoscalar mediator, heavy scalars will be probed up to masses of 1.9 TeV, and the light pseudoscalar mediator will be accessible up to masses of 600 GeV. A comparison of different scenarios of systematic uncertainties shows that even moderate differences in the size of uncertainties can significantly affect the size of the dataset necessary for discovery. Independent of the details of the systematic uncertainty treatment, significant improvements in the mass and coupling reach over current results are to be expected.
References
1 D. Abercrombie et al. Dark matter benchmark models for early LHC run-2 searches: Report of the ATLAS/CMS Dark Matter Forum 1507.00966
2 M. Bauer, U. Haisch, and F. Kahlhoefer Simplified dark matter models with two higgs doublets: I. Pseudoscalar mediators JHEP 05 (2017) 138 1701.07427
3 LHC Dark Matter Working Group Next-generation spin-0 dark matter models To be published
4 CMS Collaboration Search for new physics in events with a leptonically decaying Z boson and a large transverse momentum imbalance in proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 13 TeV EPJC 78 (2018) 291 CMS-EXO-16-052
1711.00431
5 CMS Collaboration Particle-flow reconstruction and global event description with the CMS detector JINST 12 (2017) P10003 CMS-PRF-14-001
1706.04965
6 T. Melia, P. Nason, R. Rontsch, and G. Zanderighi W+W-, WZ and ZZ production in the POWHEG BOX JHEP 11 (2011) 078 1107.5051
7 P. Nason and G. Zanderighi $ W^+ W^- $ , $ W Z $ and $ Z Z $ production in the POWHEG-BOX-V2 EPJC 74 (2014) 2702 1311.1365
8 S. Frixione, P. Nason, and G. Ridolfi A positive-weight next-to-leading-order Monte Carlo for heavy flavour hadroproduction JHEP 09 (2007) 126 0707.3088
9 M. Grazzini, S. Kallweit, and D. Rathlev ZZ production at the LHC: fiducial cross sections and distributions in NNLO QCD PLB 750 (2015) 407 1507.06257
10 M. Grazzini, S. Kallweit, D. Rathlev, and M. Wiesemann $ W^{\pm}Z $ production at hadron colliders in NNLO QCD PLB 761 (2016) 179 1604.08576
11 J. Baglio, L. D. Ninh, and M. M. Weber Massive gauge boson pair production at the LHC: A next-to-leading order story PRD 88 (2013) 113005 1307.4331
12 A. Bierweiler, T. Kasprzik, and J. H. Kahn Vector-boson pair production at the LHC to $ \mathcal{O}(\alpha^3) $ accuracy JHEP 12 (2013) 071 1305.5402
13 S. Gieseke, T. Kasprzik, and J. H. Kuhn Vector-boson pair production and electroweak corrections in HERWIG++ EPJC 74 (2014) 2988 1401.3964
14 J. Alwall et al. The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations JHEP 07 (2014) 079 1405.0301
15 R. Frederix and S. Frixione Merging meets matching in MC@NLO JHEP 12 (2012) 061 1209.6215
16 M. Neubert, J. Wang, and C. Zhang Higher-order QCD predictions for dark matter production in mono-Z searches at the LHC JHEP 02 (2016) 082 1509.05785
17 NNPDF Collaboration Parton distributions for the LHC run II JHEP 04 (2015) 040 1410.8849
18 NNPDF Collaboration Parton distributions from high-precision collider data EPJC 77 (2017) 663 1706.00428
19 T. Sjostrand et al. An introduction to PYTHIA 8.2 CPC 191 (2015) 159 1410.3012
20 CMS Collaboration Event generator tunes obtained from underlying event and multiparton scattering measurements EPJC76 (2016), no. 3, 155 CMS-GEN-14-001
1512.00815
21 GEANT4 Collaboration GEANT4--a simulation toolkit NIMA 506 (2003) 250
22 M. Cacciari, G. P. Salam, and G. Soyez The anti-$ k_t $ jet clustering algorithm JHEP 04 (2008) 063 0802.1189
23 M. Cacciari, G. P. Salam, and G. Soyez FastJet user manual EPJC 72 (2012) 1896 1111.6097
24 CMS Collaboration Identification of heavy-flavour jets with the CMS detector in pp collisions at 13 TeV JINST 13 (2018) P05011 CMS-BTV-16-002
1712.07158
25 A. Buckley et al. LHAPDF6: parton density access in the LHC precision era EPJC 75 (2015) 132 1412.7420
26 CMS Collaboration The Phase-2 Upgrade of the CMS endcap calorimeter CDS
27 T. Junk Confidence level computation for combining searches with small statistics NIMA 434 (1999) 435 hep-ex/9902006
28 A. L. Read Presentation of search results: the $ CL_{s} $ technique JPG 28 (2002) 2693
29 G. Cowan, K. Cranmer, E. Gross, and O. Vitells Asymptotic formulae for likelihood-based tests of new physics EPJC 71 (2011) 1554 1007.1727
30 ATLAS and CMS Collaborations, LHC Higgs Combination Group Procedure for the LHC Higgs boson search combination in Summer 2011 ATL-PHYS-PUB-2011-11, CMS NOTE 2011/005
31 CERN Yellow Report HL/HE-LHC physics performance To be published
32 A. Albert et al. Recommendations of the LHC Dark Matter Working Group: Comparing LHC searches for heavy mediators of dark matter production in visible and invisible decay channels 1703.05703
33 Planck Collaboration Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters Astron. Astrophys. 594 (2016) A13 1502.01589
Compact Muon Solenoid
LHC, CERN