Precision calculations for beyond the Standard Model processes at the LHC

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Michael Krämer
• Subject Area: Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 257416295

Precision calculations for beyond the Standard Model (BSM) processes at the LHC are crucial to explore the properties of new physics and, in the absence of a discovery, to derive limits on new particle masses and the parameter space of new models. Precision calculations, in particular at next-to-leading-order in QCD, exist for various LHC production and decay processes in a limited number of specific models. For the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) they are encoded in the public computer program PROSPINO [1,2,11]. However, the existing calculations have a severe drawback: they have been carried out in a specific framework and cannot easily be modified to describe non-standard supersymmetric mass spectra or processes in different BSM scenarios.Top-down models of new physics, like constrained supersymmetry, have been severely challenged in the first phase of the LHC. One thus needs a more flexible approach for the upcoming LHC run, in order to extend precision calculations to a wider class of BSM physics scenarios. The only efficient way to achieve this is through automated tools. Such tools need to combine next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD for generic BSM processes with a summation of large logarithmic threshold corrections and the matching with parton shower Monte Carlo programs.For the last decade PROSPINO has been the standard tool for interpreting supersymmetry searches at the Tevatron and at the early phase of the LHC. The goal of Project A is to provide the corresponding more powerful and flexible tool for the upcoming LHC era.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2239: New Physics at the Large Hadron Collider
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Tilman Plehn