WWscattering at the CERN LHC

Abstract

A detailed study is presented of elastic WW scattering in the scenario that there are no new particles discovered prior to the commissioning of the LHC. We work within the framework of the electroweak chiral lagrangian and two different unitarisation protocols are investigated. Signals and backgrounds are simulated to the final-state-particle level. A new technique for identifying the hadronically decaying W is developed, which is more generally applicable to massive particles which decay to jets where the separation of the jets is small. The effect of different assumptions about the underlying event is also studied. We conclude that the channel WW -> jj+l+nu may contain scalar and/or vector resonances which could be measurable after 100 fb^(-1) of LHC data.Comment: 29 page