Higher Representations and Multi-Jet Resonances at the LHC

Abstract

The CMS collaboration has recently conducted a search for trijet resonances in multi-jet events at the LHC. Motivated in part by this analysis, we examine the phenomenology of exotic particles transforming under higher representations of SU(3) color, focusing on those representations which intrinsically prohibit decays to fewer than three jets. We determine the LHC discovery reach for a particle transforming in a representation of this sort and discuss several additional theoretical and phenomenological constraints which apply to such a particle. Furthermore, we demonstrate that such a particle can provide a consistent explanation for a trijet excess (an invariant-mass peak of roughly 375 GeV) observed in the recent CMS study.