Signatures of New Physics at the LHC

We are a group of theorists who have formed a “New Physics Working Group” (NPWG) to address questions surrounding characterization of search results from the LHC. Of particular emphasis is improving the model-independence of methods used in new physics searches and any characterization of signals.

This effort was initiated by a workshop on this topic at a joint ATLAS, CMS, and Theory meeting at CERN in June 2010. One outcome of this workshop was a request by ATLAS and CMS to the theory community to help develop a collection of topology sets representative of new physics that could appear at the LHC. The intention is to use these topology sets to ensure that searches explore all relevant phase space, and to facilitate more effective communication of results from the LHC.

At the meeting Topologies for Early LHC Searches, the participants (theorists largely) began defining a set of baseline topology sets, or simplified models. These simplified models are designed to cover signature space and include detail important for optimizing searches. Particular attention was paid to including topologies inspired from a broad array of well-motivated theories.