Last December, the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider reported preliminary data with a small excess of diphoton events at an invariant mass of about 750 GeV [1,2], which, if verified, would require unexpected new elementary particles. The collaborations have recently reanalyzed their data [3,4], and the signal has become slightly stronger. Though the results are extremely intriguing, more data are required to establish if the excess is real, or a statistical fluctuation.
Over 250 theory papers have appeared following the December announcement, and a number of them were submitted to us. We found it appropriate to publish a small sample of them. To maximize the coherence and fairness of our choices, we obtained informal advice from several experts.
Four such Letters appear in this issue [5–8]. Others may follow, but we think that this set gives readers a sense of the kind of new physics that would be required to explain the data, if confirmed.
Robert Garisto
Editor
REFERENCES
[1] J. Olsen, CMS 13 TeV Results, CERN special seminar 15 December 2015.
[2] M. Kado, Results with the Full 2015 Data Sample from the ATLAS Experiment, CERN special seminar 15 December 2015.
[3] M. Delmastro, Diphoton searches in ATLAS, 51st Rencontres de Moriond EW 2016.
[4] P. Musella, Search for high mass diphoton resonances at CMS, 51st Rencontres de Moriond EW 2016.
[5] Y. Nakai, R. Sato, and K. Tobioka, Footprints of New Strong Dynamics via Anomaly and the 750 GeV Diphoton, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 151802 (2016).
[6] G. Li, Y.-n. Mao, Y.-L. Tang, C. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and S.-h. Zhu, Pseudoscalar Decaying Only via Loops as an Explanation for the 750 GeV Diphoton Excess, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 151803 (2016).
[7] C. Petersson and R. Torre, 750 GeV Diphoton Excess from the Goldstino Superpartner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 151804 (2016).
[8] W. S. Cho, D. Kim, K. Kong, S. H. Lim, K. T. Matchev, J.-C. Park, and M. Park, 750 GeV Diphoton Excess May Not Imply a 750 GeV Resonance, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 151805 (2016).
Published 12 April 2016
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.150001