Multijet discriminators for new physics in leptonic signals at the LHC
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Abstract
Some of the cleanest signals for new physics in the early runs of the LHC will involve strongly produced particles which give rise to multiple leptons by undergoing cascade decays through weakly interacting states to stable particles. Some of the most spectacular final states will involve three or more leptons, multiple jets and generally missing energy-momentum as well. A triad of the most interesting models of new physics which induce such signals is known to consist of (i) supersymmetry with $R$-parity conservation, (ii) a universal extra dimension with conservation of KK-parity, and (iii) little Higgs models with conserved $T$-parity. Similar signals could also arise if the standard model is augmented with a fourth sequential generation of heavy fermions. We study all these possibilities and show that a judiciously chosen set of observables, critically involving the number of identifiable jets and leptons, can collectively provide distinct footprints for each of these models. In fact, simple pairwise correlation of such observables can enable unambiguous identification of the underlying model, even with a relatively small data sample.