Probing the Green-Schwarz Mechanism at the Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

We investigate the phenomenology of new abelian gauge bosons, which we denote as $X$ bosons, that suffer a mixed anomaly with the Standard Model, but are made self-consistent by the Green-Schwarz mechanism. A distinguishing aspect of the resulting effective theory is the decay of $X$ bosons into Standard Model gauge bosons, $X\to ZZ, WW, \gamma Z$. We compute the production cross-section of the $X$ boson from vector boson fusion at the Large Hadron Collider. We study the $pp\to X\to ZZ\to 4l$ signal, and analyze the prospects of discovery. We argue that such a discovery could indirectly probe high energies, even up to the string scale.