STRONG W+W+ SCATTERING SIGNALS AT PP SUPERCOLLIDERS

Like-sign W-boson production has been proposed as a probe of possible strong scattering in the electroweak-symmetry-breaking sector that would enhance the production of longitudinally polarized gauge bosons. We evaluate the expected signals in the channel pp'W+W+X, W+'l+ at pp supercolliders, for several different theoretical models in which strong scattering occurs, using realistic acceptance cuts and comparing with standard-model background contributions. We find that backgrounds are potentially a serious problem, especially those from electroweak production of transversely polarized W bosons. However, vetoing events with high-pT jets in the central region makes it possible to suppress all backgrounds at little cost to the signal. With an integrated luminosity of 10 fb-1 at the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) or 100 fb-1 at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and a dilepton detection efficiency of 50%, there could be 38 signal events, depending on the model, with about 3.5 (1.7) background events at the SSC and 8.5 (2.5) background events at the LHC for mt=100 (200) GeV. © 1990 The American Physical Society.