# Closing the Low-mass Axigluon Window

## Motivation

The possible existence of an axigluon was first realized in chiral color models chiral , where the gauge group of the strong interaction is extended from $`SU(3)_C`$ to $`SU(3)_L\times SU(3)_R`$. At low energy, this larger color gauge group breaks to the usual $`SU(3)_C`$ with its octet of massless vector gluons, but it leaves a residual $`SU(3)`$ with an octet of massive, axial vector bosons called axigluons. In these chiral color models, the axigluon is expected to have a mass of order the electroweak scale. Similar states are predicted in technicolor models tc .

In order to search for these states, Bagger, Schmidt and King bsk  noted that the di-jet cross section at hadron colliders would be modified by the addition of $`s`$-channel axigluon exchange. Searches were performed by the UA1 and CDF collaborations, with limits of $`150GeV<M_A<310GeV`$ by UA1 UA1-dijet  and $`120GeV<M_A<980GeV`$ by CDF CDF-dijet . Given additional center of mass energy and/or luminosity, these di-jet searched at hadron colliders will easily raise the upper exclusion limit, but it will be difficult to decrease the lower exclusion limit.

Several additional search strategies were suggested involving the $`Z^0`$ and the large amounts of data taken by the LEP experiments. Rizzo rizzo  suggested $`Z^0q\overline{q}A`$ and Carlson, et al.carlson  suggested $`Z^0gA`$ going through a quark loop. These suggestions involve low rates, and the former requires precision multi-jet reconstruction.

In the remainder of this report, I will address some additional search strategies for the axigluon, and report on the current status of the search.

## $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ decays to real axigluons

The decay of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ family is an ideal area to search for low mass, strongly interacting particles. In the Standard Model, the dominant hadronic decay mode of any heavy vector quarkonium state ($`J^{PC}=1^{}`$) is the 3 gluon mode, $`V_Qggg`$, where $`Q`$ refers to the specific flavor of heavy quark. The decay to a single gluon is forbidden by color, while the decay to 2 gluons is forbidden by both the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Yang theorem lpy  (which forbids the decay of a $`J=1`$ state to 2 massless spin 1 states) and quantum numbers ($`C=1`$ for the gluon, so an odd number of gluons are needed for this particular decay). The leading order decay rate of a heavy quarkonium state to 3 gluons is well known:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(V_Qggg)=\frac{40(\pi ^29)\alpha _s^3}{81\pi M_V^2}|R(0)|^2$$
(1)   
where $`M_V`$ is the quarkonium state’s mass and R(0) is the non-relativistic, radial wavefunction evaluated at the origin.

A heavy, vector quarkonium state may decay into a gluon plus an axigluon. As the axigluon is massive, the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Yang theorem is avoided, and the axigluon has $`C=+1`$. The decay rate for $`V_QAg`$ is given by mhr1 :

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(V_QAg)=\frac{16\alpha _s^2}{9M_V^2}|R(0)|^2(1x)(1+\frac{1}{x})$$
(2)   
where $`x=\left(\frac{M_A}{M_V}\right)^2`$. Both this decay rate and the leading order Standard Model rate depend on the non-relativistic radial wavefunction; a ratio of these two decay rates does not depend on the wavefunction, and, as such, had much less uncertainty. The ratio is given by:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(V_QAg)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(V_Qggg)}=\frac{18\pi }{5\alpha _s(\pi ^29)}(1x)(1+\frac{1}{x})$$
(3)   
Notice that, since the gluon plus axigluon mode has one fewer power of $`\alpha _s`$, the ratio is large (the numerical factor in front of the kinematical structure is approximately 100).

This ratio, as a function of $`x`$ is shown in Figure 1. The addition of this new hadronic decay mode will at least double the hadronic width of a vector quarkonium state, even for an axigluon mass nearly equal to the quarkonium state mass. Using this process and the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ system, we can exclude an axigluon with mass below about $`10GeV`$. A analysis by Cuypers and Frampton cf  yielded quantitatively similar conclusions.

## $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ decays to virtual axigluons

In addition to $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ decays to real axigluons, it is possible to study $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ decays to virtual axigluons, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}gA^{}(q\overline{q})`$. The decay rate is given by mhr2 

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(V_Qq\overline{q}g)=\frac{2^8n\alpha _s^3}{3^5\pi }\frac{M_V^2}{M_A^4}F(x)|R(0)|^2$$
(4)   
where $`n`$ is the number of active quark flavors (in this case 4) and

$$F(x)=\frac{3}{2}x^2\left(2x\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{x}{x1}\right)2\frac{1}{x}\right).$$
(5)   
As before, we can look at the ratio of this hadronic width to the dominant Standard Model width:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(V_Qq\overline{q}g)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(V_Qggg)}=\frac{128F(x)}{15(\pi ^29)x^2}.$$
(6)   
This time, there is no large numerical factor. This ratio is shown in Figure 2. The dashed lines in the figure indicate 2 possible exclusion limits that can be made using data. The more conservative estimate is to argue that our knowledge of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ width is such that a correction to the standard width larger than 50% is unacceptable; thus, this ratio is smaller than 0.5, which gives an upper exclusion limit of $`M_A<21GeV`$. A less conservative estimate is to compare this correction to the expected rate to QCD radiative corrections to the Standard Model rate and other possible contributions to the hadronic width (e.g., $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\gamma ^{}q\overline{q}`$), and argue that another correction larger than these is unacceptable. In this case, the ratio must be less than 0.25, excluding axigluons with mass smaller than $`25GeV`$.

Not long after our work on the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$, Cuypers and Frampton and Cuypers, Falk and Frampton cff  published papers on the $`R`$ value in $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions at low energy. They included the full set of QCD radiative corrections, including axigluon radiative corrections, to the tree level process. They exclude an axigluon with $`M_A<50GeV`$ using PEP and PETRA data.

## Top production

The top is too short lived to allow for a toponium state; if it did, the same techniques that worked in the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ system would work for toponium as well. On the other hand, because of the large mass of the top, top production is inherently perturbative, $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}`$ is well understood, and it can be used to search for a light axigluon. The parton level cross section for $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}`$, due to an $`s`$-channel gluon, is well known:

$$\left(\frac{d\sigma }{d\widehat{t}}\right)_0=\frac{1}{16\pi \widehat{s}^2}\frac{64\pi ^2}{9}\alpha _s^2\left[\frac{(m^2\widehat{t})^2+(m^2\widehat{u})^2+2m^2\widehat{s}}{\widehat{s}^2}\right]$$
(7)   
and the cross section with the addition of an $`s`$-channel axigluon is mr1 

$$\left(\frac{d\sigma }{d\widehat{t}}\right)_{q\overline{q}}=\left(\frac{d\sigma }{d\widehat{t}}\right)_0\left[1+|r(\widehat{s})|^2+4\mathrm{}(r(\widehat{s}))\frac{(\widehat{t}\widehat{u})\widehat{s}\beta }{(\widehat{t}\widehat{u})^2+\widehat{s}^2\beta ^2}\right]$$
(8)   
where $`r(\widehat{s})=\frac{\widehat{s}}{\widehat{s}M_A^2+iM_A\mathrm{\Gamma }_A}`$ and $`\beta `$ is the top quark velocity parameter, $`\beta =\sqrt{1\frac{4m^2}{\widehat{s}}}`$. The addition of an $`s`$-channel axigluon affects both the total cross section and the forward-backward asymmetry (only the interference term affects the forward-backward asymmetry).

The results on total cross section are shown in Figure 3. From the relatively good agreement between experimental values of the top cross section top-D0 ; top-CDF  and theoretical calculations bc ; cat , we can say that an axigluon is disfavored by top production cross section, but nothing conclusive can be said.

Shown in Figure 4 is the forward-backward asymmetry in top production as a function of axigluon mass. Without an axigluon, the asymmetry is identically zero.

## Miscellaneous

Unitarity is violated, in that $`Q\overline{Q}Q\overline{Q}`$ will be non-perturbative unless

$$M_A>\sqrt{\frac{5\alpha _s}{3}}M_Q$$
(9)   
as pointed out by Robinett rick . Using the top quark as $`Q`$, this leads to a lower limit on the axigluon mass of $`M_A>73GeV`$ mr2 .

Higgs searches, e.g., by CDF, can make use of the process $`p\overline{p}W+X^0`$, where $`X^0`$ is the neutral Higgs boson, and it is assumed to decay to $`b\overline{b}`$ bhat . The limit on Higgs boson mass is such that $`\sigma BR>1520pb`$ are not allowed. The same final state is possible with an axigluon in place of the Higgs boson; we find the part level cross section for $`q\overline{q}^{}WA`$ to be mr2 :

$$\frac{d\widehat{\sigma }}{d\widehat{t}}=\frac{4\alpha _s}{9}\left[\frac{G_FM_W^2}{\sqrt{2}}\right]\frac{|V_{qq^{}}|^2}{\widehat{u}\widehat{t}\widehat{s}^2}\left[\widehat{u}^2+\widehat{t}^2+2\widehat{s}(M_W^2+M_A^2)\frac{M_A^2M_W^2(\widehat{u}^2+\widehat{t}^2)}{\widehat{u}\widehat{t}}\right].$$
(10)   
Assuming $`BR(Ab\overline{b})=\frac{1}{5}`$, and calculating the cross section for the associated production of $`W+A`$, a conservative lower limit of $`M_A>70GeV`$ is possible, using the same analysis at the Higgs search.

Finally, we can examine the value of $`\alpha _s`$, extracted from low energy data but run up to $`M_Z`$ to the value of $`\alpha _s`$ extracted from the hadronic width of the $`Z^0`$ at the pole. Since the axigluon mass is expected to be at least $`70GeV`$, the running of $`\alpha _s`$ should not be affected much by the axigluon. Then, the $`R`$ value at low energy, or the hadronic width at the $`Z^0`$ pole, is subject to a correction from real and virtual axigluons cff , of the form:

$$\left[1+\frac{\alpha _s(\sqrt{s})}{\pi }f\left(\frac{\sqrt{s}}{M_A}\right)+𝒪(\alpha _s^2)\right]$$
(11)   
where the function $`F(\sqrt{s}/M_A)`$ is calculated in Ref. cff . The Particle Data Group pdg  quotes a value of $`\alpha _s`$ from various low energy data run up to $`M_Z`$ as $`\alpha _s^{(LE)}=0.118\pm 0.004`$, while the extraction from the hadronic with of the $`Z^0`$ at $`M_Z`$ as $`\alpha _s^{(HE)}=0.123\pm 0.004\pm 0.002`$. Attributing the difference in the extracted values of $`\alpha _s`$ to the axigluon gives abound on the $`f(\sqrt{s}/M_A)`$ term, such that $`f(M_Z/M_A)0.042\pm 0.050`$. This implies that $`f(M_Z/M_A)<0.092(0.142)`$ at the $`65\%`$ $`(95\%)`$ level, and that $`M_Z>570GeV(365GeV)`$ at the same confidence levels. Should the agreement between the low energy and high energy extractions of $`\alpha _s`$ increase, the corresponding lower limit on the axigluon mass would also increase.

## Conclusions

The existence of an axigluon is predicted in chiral color models. A low-mass axigluon is difficult to exclude in typical collider experiments (e.g., using di-jet data). Other approaches must be used to rule out axigluons with masses below $`125GeV`$. $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ decay, top production, unitarity bounds and associated production of a $`W`$ boson with an axigluon can exclude axigluons with mass below about $`70GeV`$. A comparison of $`\alpha _s`$ as extracted in low energy experiments and high energy experiments can rule out an axigluon with a mass lower than $`365GeV`$. This completely closes the low-mass axigluon window, and when combined with the CDF limits, an axigluon with mass below about $`1TeV`$ is not allowed. An axigluon, if it exists, is in the realm of $`TeV`$ physics.

## acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the support of Penn State through a Research Development Grant and the Mont Alto Faculty Affairs Committee’s Professional Development Fund. I would like to thank Rick Robinett for carefully reading this manuscript.