Detection prospects of long-lived quirk pairs at the LHC far detectors

Abstract

We examine the sensitivity reaches of several LHC far detectors, such as FASER2, MATHUSLA, ANUBIS, SND@LHC, and FACET, to five simplified quirk scenarios. We include the next-to-leading order QCD corrections in our simulation of quirk events, which enhance the total production rate and increase the fraction of events in the forward direction for most cases. We calculate the time scales for the quirk pair to lose energy through radiations and for the quirk pair annihilation. Our results show that these far detectors can offer promising probes to the quirk scenario, complementing the searches at the main detectors. Especially, FACET and FASER2 detectors can surpass the majority of searches conducted at the LHC main detector, with the exception of the HSCP search, for the color-neutral quirk $\mathcal{E}$.