On the sensitivity reach of LQ production with preferential couplings to third generation fermions at the LHC

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Leptoquarks ( LQ LQ s) are hypothetical particles that appear in various extensions of the Standard Model (SM), that can explain observed differences between SM theory predictions and experimental results. The production of these particles has been widely studied at various experiments, most recently at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and stringent bounds have been placed on their masses and couplings, assuming the simplest beyond-SM (BSM) hypotheses. However, the limits are significantly weaker for LQ LQ models with family non-universal couplings containing enhanced couplings to third-generation fermions. We present a new study on the production of a LQ LQ at the LHC, with preferential couplings to third-generation fermions, considering proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 \, TeV s = 13 TeV and √s = 13.6 \, TeV s = 13.6 TeV . Such a hypothesis is well motivated theoretically and it can explain the recent anomalies in the precision measurements of B B -meson decay rates, specifically the R_D(*) R D ( ∗ ) ratios. Under a simplified model where the LQ LQ masses and couplings are free parameters, we focus on cases where the LQ LQ decays to a τ τ lepton and a b b quark, and study how the results are affected by different assumptions about chiral currents and interference effects with other BSM processes with the same final states, such as diagrams with a heavy vector boson, Z Z ′ . The analysis is performed using machine learning techniques, resulting in an increased discovery reach at the LHC, allowing us to probe new physics phase space which addresses the B B -meson anomalies, for LQ LQ masses up to 5.00\, TeV 5.00 TeV , for the high luminosity LHC scenario.