Speaker
Description
Quirks are particles that have Standard Model (SM) interactions and also interact through infracolor (IC), a new strong force. In models where the IC confinement scale is much less than the quirk mass, $\Lambda \ll m_\mathrm{Q}$, quirk pairs produced at colliders are connected by an IC string force and oscillate around their center of mass with unusual trajectories that escape traditional particle searches. We present a search for quirks using data collected in 2022-2024 by the FASER detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is based on an integrated luminosity of $186~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton--proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 13.6~$TeV. This analysis constitutes the first search for quirks with masses above the weak scale for this broad range of $\Lambda$ and demonstrates the potential of FASER and other forward experiments to discover not only light and feebly-interacting particles, but also new particles with weak-scale masses and unconventional signatures.
| Submitted on behalf of ... | Submitted centrally on behalf of the Collaboration |
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