Probing Heavy Spin-2 Bosons with $\gamma \gamma$ final states from Vector Boson Fusion Processes at the LHC

Understand

New massive spin-2 particles are predicted in theoretical extensions to the Standard Model (SM) attempting to solve the hierarchy problem.

• Such theories postulate that gravity is diluted compared to the other fundamental forces because it can propagate in extra spatial dimensions.
• While such theoretical models are of high experimental interest because they predict massive spin-2 particles ($Y_{2}$) potentially detectable by collider experiments, searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have thus far produced no significant evidence for their existence.
• This work considers a hypothetical physics scenario where low coupling strengths between the $Y_{2}$ and quarks/gluons is the underlying reason behind the null $Y_{2}$ search results at the LHC, which have mainly relied on Drell-Yan and gluon-gluon fusion production mechanisms.