The Search for Extra Neutral Currents at the LHC: QCD and Anomalous Gauge Interactions

Abstract

Extensions of the Standard Model with extra neutral currents due to additional anomalous abelian gauge factors are considered. We summarize the main features of the effective action associated to these theories. They are characterized by an axion-like particle (the {\em axi-higgs}) which can be (almost) massless, with its mass generated non-perturbatively in the QCD vacuum as for an ordinary Peccei-Quinn axion, but that can also mix with the scalars of the Higgs sector, becoming a heavy axion. We briefly describe the interplay between the electroweak and the QCD sectors in these types of theories, which emerge either from special vacua of string/brane theory; from partial decoupling of a heavier fermion sector or from an anomaly inflow in the context of models with extra dimensions.