# Hunting a Light 𝑈⁢(1)_𝐵 Gauge Boson Coupled to Baryon Number in Collider Experiments

## I Introduction

Global symmetries of the standard model (SM), like baryon and lepton numbers, can be broken by quantum gravity effects . In order to avoid an unacceptably large proton decay rate induced by this symmetry breaking we can elevate the conservation of baryon number to a local symmetry . Moreover, there are string models that also gauge baryon number to protect the proton from decaying through higher-dimensional operators. In particular, models with low string scale, $`E_{\mathrm{string}}𝒪`$(TeV), generally exhibit baryon number as a local symmetry .

In this work, we analyze the signals of a light gauge boson coupling to baryon number at the HERA and Tevatron colliders. We assumed that the $`U(1)_B`$ symmetry is spontaneously broken, giving a mass ($`m_B`$) to $`\gamma _B`$, and that the mixing between $`\gamma _B`$ and the electroweak gauge bosons is negligible . In the absence of mixing, the $`\gamma _B`$ boson always decays into quark pairs; its signature is thus the presence of 2 jets with an invariant mass close to $`m_B`$. A previous analysis  studied its effect on $`Z`$-pole physics and constrained its coupling to be $`\alpha _B0.2`$ for masses $`m_Bm_Z`$. Moreover, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(1S)`$ decays are modified by the $`\gamma _B`$ boson, leading to stronger constraints on $`\alpha _B`$ for $`m_B30`$ GeV .

In our analysis we concentrate on the decay $`\gamma _Bb\overline{b}`$ in order to reduce the QCD backgrounds. Using a muon trigger, we show that the study of the production of $`b\overline{b}`$ pairs at the (upgraded) Tevatron can exclude $`\gamma _B`$ bosons with masses ($`m_B`$) in the range $`40m_B300`$ GeV for couplings $`\alpha _B2\times 10^2`$ ($`3\times 10^3`$). A displaced vertex trigger could increase the sensitivity at the upcoming Main Injector (MI) run by another factor of three. We also use the available search by the CDF collaboration for particles decaying into $`b\overline{b}`$ pairs . Since this search uses a jet trigger which needs to be pre-scaled if the jet energies are not very large, the resulting limit turns out to be weaker than the sensitivity limit of current data based on a muon trigger. We also analyze $`\gamma _B`$ production at HERA, however, the potential bounds derived from this study are weaker than the $`Z`$–pole or Tevatron ones due to the limited integrated luminosity.

In principle, $`\gamma _B`$ boson exchange in the $`t`$channel can give rise to events presenting a large rapidity gap between two jets . Recently DØ studied the gap fraction as a function of $`E_T`$ . Our fit to this data in terms of $`\gamma _B`$ exchange gives $`\gamma _B`$ masses very close to zero and $`\alpha _B0.06`$. However, this region is already excluded by the analysis of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(1S)`$ decays . Moreover, the HERA data on rapidity gaps can only be explained for $`m_B0`$ and very large $`\alpha _B`$. Therefore, the present data on the production of rapidity gaps cannot be explained by the existence of a $`\gamma _B`$ boson.

In our analyses we assumed that the interaction between quarks and $`\gamma _B`$ is described by the effective Lagrangian

$`_{\text{eff}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _B}\overline{q}\gamma ^\mu qB_\mu ,`$

where we denote the quark fields by $`q`$ and the $`\gamma _B`$ field by $`B_\mu `$. Neglecting the fermions masses, the $`\gamma _B`$ width is given by

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_B={\displaystyle \frac{N}{9}}\alpha _Bm_B,`$

where $`N`$ is the number of quark pairs to which $`\gamma _B`$ can decay.

## II Direct Searches at Tevatron and HERA

In hadronic collisions $`\gamma _B`$ bosons can be produced in the $`s`$-channel via quark–antiquark annihilation, leading to two-jet events. In order to reduce the large QCD backgrounds we focused on $`\gamma _B`$ decays into $`b\overline{b}`$ pairs ($`p\overline{p}q\overline{q}\gamma _Bb\overline{b}`$). The main backgrounds to this process are QCD $`b\overline{b}`$ production, mistagged QCD jets, and $`Z`$ production for $`m_B`$ close to $`M_Z`$. Since the two-jet event rate is too large for the present data acquisition system to be able to analyze all events, we need to choose a trigger to select a subset of the data. In our analyses of the Run I potential for $`\gamma _B`$ searches, we considered only events containing a muon (from $`b`$ decay) with $`p_T^\mu >7.5`$ GeV and $`|\eta _\mu |<0.9`$ (2 for the upgraded Tevatron) . There is one useful byproduct of this requirement: together with the requirement that both $`b`$’s be vertex tagged, the presence of this muon reduces the mistag background to a negligible level. Moreover, we also demanded that

* the jets should have $`p_T>15`$ GeV;
* the jets should be separated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }R>0.4`$.

With these requirements the $`b`$ tag efficiency is 0.24. In our analyses we evaluated the scattering amplitudes of the signal and backgrounds using the package Madgraph , taking into account the interference between $`\gamma _B`$ and gluon$`/Z`$ exchange diagrams.

We considered that a point of the $`(\alpha _B,m_B)`$ plane is within the reach of an experimental search, if the predicted signal has a $`3\sigma `$ significance when we restrict ourselves to $`b\overline{b}`$ invariant masses in the range $`m_B10\mathrm{GeV}<m_{b\overline{b}}<m_B+10`$ GeV. We chose this rather high confidence level for an exclusion limit since our analysis does not allow for experimental resolutions or efficiencies (other than the $`b`$tagging efficiency). We note, however, that CDF recently found  preliminary evidence for $`Zb\overline{b}`$ decays in their Run I data sample using cuts very similar to the ones applied by us. We show in Fig. 1a the region in the $`(\alpha _B,m_B)`$ plane which could be excluded by the CDF Run I data, i.e. for an integrated luminosity of 110 pb<sup>-1</sup> and a $`b`$-tagging efficiency of 24%, if no signal is found. In this figure we also display the effect of having a larger integrated luminosity (2 fb<sup>-1</sup>) and an extended rapidity acceptance for the muons ($`|\eta _\mu |<2`$) at the MI. Notice that our $`p_T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ cuts constrain the invariant mass of the $`b\overline{b}`$ pair in two-jet events to be larger than 30 GeV.

In order to explore smaller $`\gamma _B`$ masses we considered its production in association with a jet. The processes that we analyzed are

$`p\overline{p}`$ $`\gamma _Bg`$ $`b\overline{b}g,`$   
$`p\overline{p}`$ $`\gamma _Bq`$ $`b\overline{b}q,`$   
where $`q`$ can be any quark or antiquark. We present in Fig. 1b the potential limits on $`\alpha _B`$ and $`m_B`$ originating from the study of $`b`$-$`\overline{b}`$-jet production for Run I and at the MI. In this analysis we applied the same cuts for the $`b\overline{b}`$ system and required the extra jet to have $`p_T>10`$ GeV and to be separated from the $`b`$ jets by $`\mathrm{\Delta }R>0.4`$.

It is also possible to search for $`\gamma _B`$ using the Run I data but triggering on jets with a minimum $`E_T`$ . This choice of trigger requires pre-scaling, which leads to small effective integrated luminosities at low values of $`E_T`$. Using the CDF excluded production cross sections for particles decaying into $`b\overline{b}`$ pairs we obtained the limits on $`\gamma _B`$ shown in Fig. 2. We emphasize that the bounds shown in this figure are directly based on an experimental analysis, including all resolution and efficiency effects. As we can see, for $`m_B`$ up to a few hundred GeV the limits on $`\gamma _B`$ from this search are weaker than the ones that should be obtainable using the muon trigger, if no signal is found.

The Tevatron experimental collaborations are studying the possibility of triggering events exhibiting displaced vertices for the upcoming Main Injector run. We access the impact of this trigger on the searches for $`\gamma _B`$ eliminating the cuts on the muon coming from $`b`$ decays and introducing the QCD mistag background with a rate of 1% per jet. All other cuts are unchanged. Fig. 3 contains the region of the $`(\alpha _B,m_B)`$ plane that can be probed at the MI with this new trigger. As we can see from this figure, this trigger can increase the sensitivity of the Tevatron for $`\gamma _B`$ searches.

At HERA, $`\gamma _B`$ bosons can be produced via the hadronic content of the photon:

$`\gamma pq\overline{q}\gamma _Bq^{}\overline{q^{}}.`$

However, the two-jet signature of $`\gamma _B`$ is immersed in a large background from resolved photons. It turns out that the signal can not be observed even for the largest couplings allowed by the $`Z`$ physics ($`\alpha _B0.2`$) for the presently available luminosities. In order to observe a $`\gamma _B`$ signal for this large couplings one would need an integrated luminosity of at least 250–500 pb<sup>-1</sup> depending on $`m_B`$. Therefore, the bounds on $`\gamma _B`$ from HERA are much weaker than the $`Z`$ pole or Tevatron ones.

## III Rapidity gap analysis

Experiments at HERA and the Tevatron have observed events containing two jets with no hadronic activity between them. These occur with a frequency of order of one percent in hadron–hadron collisions . This is just one example of an interaction mediated by the exchange of the “Pomeron”, a state which carries no net color. Since $`\gamma _B`$ is a color singlet, it can also give rise to rapidity gap events . In this case the fraction of events presenting rapidity gaps as well as their kinematical distributions are determined by $`\alpha _B`$ and $`m_B`$, which allows us to constrain these parameters. Here we extract the bounds on $`\gamma _B`$ from the study of rapidity gaps assuming that these are only due to $`\gamma _B`$ exchange in the $`t`$channel.

The DØ Collaboration has recently measured the production cross section of hard jets separated by a rapidity gap as a function of transverse momentum and gap size . This data indicates that a large fraction of the gap events originates from quark–quark collisions , a feature that is present in the $`\gamma _B`$ exchange. In order to obtain bounds on $`\gamma _B`$ from this data, we evaluated

$`F_{\text{gap}}(E_T)={\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _B/dE_T}{d\sigma _{\text{total}}/dE_T}},`$

where $`\sigma _B`$ and $`\sigma _{\text{total}}`$ are the $`\gamma _B`$ contribution and the total cross section for the production of jet pairs, respectively.

In our analysis, we fixed the value of $`m_B`$ and determined $`\alpha _B`$ in order to fit the experimental $`E_T`$ spectrum, using the cuts and $`E_T`$ bins defined in Ref. . We exhibit in Fig. 4 the region in the $`(\alpha _B,m_B)`$ plane obtained from the fits to the data. Although the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution as a function of $`\alpha _B`$ has a well-defined minimum for all values of $`m_B`$, the quality of the fit is good only at small $`m_B`$. This can be seen from Fig. 5, which shows the general trend of the predicted $`E_T`$ distribution as $`m_B`$ increases. Therefore, $`\gamma _B`$ exchange cannot be the sole source of rapidity gap events at the Tevatron since the low mass allowed region in Fig. 4 has already been ruled out by the direct $`\gamma _B`$ search in $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ decays . Furthermore, for larger $`\gamma _B`$ masses the fitted values of $`\alpha _B`$ fall well within the region that can be probed by the the direct search for $`\gamma _B`$ using Run I data, see Fig. 1. It is interesting to notice that introducing a gap survival probability  $`P_s<1`$ only worsens the problem since this will require larger values of $`\alpha _B`$ to fit the data, $`\alpha _B1/\sqrt{P_s}`$.

Hard jets separated by a rapidity gap have also been observed in photoproduction events at the $`ep`$ collider HERA . The ZEUS Collaboration measured that approximately 10% of the two-jet events with $`p_T>6`$ GeV and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta >3`$ present a rapidity gap . Assuming that these events stem from $`\gamma _B`$ exchange in the $`t`$–channel we can constrain the mass and coupling of $`\gamma _B`$. We present in Table I the values of $`\alpha _B`$ that lead to the observed gap fraction of 0.1 at large rapidity separation, where we imposed the cuts of Ref. . Here it is also clear that these events cannot be explained solely as being due to $`\gamma _B`$ exchange.

## IV Conclusions

In this work we demonstrated that the presently available Tevatron data can be used to rule out the existence of bosons coupling to baryon number for masses in the range 40–300 GeV and $`\alpha _B0.02`$, if no signal is found. In the near future, the Tevatron experiments should increase this sensitivity to $`\alpha _B0.003`$ at the Main Injector. These bounds would preclude $`\gamma _B`$ boson exchange as a significant source of events with rapidity gaps between hard jets.

## V Acknowledgments

We would like to thank T. Stelzer for helping us to introduce the $`\gamma _B`$ into the package Madgraph. This work was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), and by Programa de Apoio a Núcleos de Excelência (PRONEX).