Heavy Z': resonant versus non-resonant searches

Understand

Collider searches for new vector-like particles such as Z' have mostly been pursued by looking for a peak in the invariant mass spectrum of the decay products.

• However off-shell Z' exchange may leave an imprint on other kinematic distributions, leading thus to non-resonant searches.
• The aim of this paper is to assess, in the context of the LHC, the interplay between resonant (s-channel) and non-resonant (t-channel) searches for a generic leptophobic Z' model.
• We show in particular that while non-resonant searches are less sensitive to small couplings, they tend to be more adapted at high masses and large couplings.