A bstract: Proton-proton collisions at energy-frontier facilities produce an intense flux of high-energy light particles, including neutrinos, in the forward direction. At the LHC, these particles are currently being studied with the far-forward experiments FASER/FASER ν and SND@LHC, while new dedicated experiments have been proposed in the context of a Forward Physics Facility (FPF) operating at the HL-LHC. Here we present a first quantitative exploration of the reach for neutrino, QCD, and BSM physics of far-forward experiments integrated within the proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) project as part of its proton-proton collision program (FCC-hh) at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ s ≃ 100 TeV. We find that 10 ⁹ electron/muon neutrinos and 10 ⁷ tau neutrinos could be detected, an increase of several orders of magnitude compared to (HL-)LHC yields. We study the impact of neutrino DIS measurements at the FPF@FCC to constrain the unpolarised and spin partonic structure of the nucleon and assess their sensitivity to nuclear dynamics down to x ∼ 10 ^{− 9} with neutrinos produced in proton-lead collisions. We demonstrate that the FPF@FCC could measure the neutrino charge radius for ν _e and ν _μ and reach down to five times the SM value for ν _τ . We fingerprint the BSM sensitivity of the FPF@FCC for a variety of models, including dark Higgs bosons, relaxion-type scenarios, quirks, and millicharged particles, finding that these experiments would be able to discover LLPs with masses as large as 50 GeV and couplings as small as 10 ^{− 8} , and quirks with masses up to 10 TeV. Our study highlights the remarkable opportunities made possible by integrating far-forward experiments into the FCC project, and it provides new motivation for the FPF at the HL-LHC as an essential precedent to optimize the forward physics experiments that will enable the FCC to achieve its full physics potential.

We study FASER and FASER 2 sensitivities to the quirk signal by simulating the motions of quirks that are travelling through several infrastructures from the ATLAS interaction point to the FASER (2) detector. The ionization energy losses for a charged quirk travelling in different materials are treated carefully. We calculate the expected numbers of quirk events that can reach the FASER (2) detector for an integrated luminosity of 150 (3000) fb⁻¹. Scenarios for quirks with four different quantum numbers, and different masses and confinement scales are studied.

We for the first time obtain the analytical solution for the quirk equation of motion in an approximate way. Based on it, we study several features of quirk trajectory in a more precise way, including quirk oscillation amplitude, number of periods, as well as the thickness of quirk pair plane. Moreover, we find an exceptional case where the quirk crosses at least one of the tracking layers repeatedly. Finally, we consider the effects of ionization energy loss and fixed direction of infracolor string for a few existing searches.

A quirk propagating through a detector is subject to the Lorentz force, a new confining gauge force, and the frictional force from ionization energy loss. At the LHC, it was found that the monojet search and the coplanar search were able to constrain such a quirk signal. Inspired by the coplanar search proposed by Knapen et al. [ Phys. Rev. D 96, 115015 (2017)], we develop a new search that also utilizes the information of the relatively large ionization energy loss inside the tracker. Our algorithm has improved efficiency in finding quirk signals with a wide oscillation amplitude. Because of our trigger strategy, the $Z(\to \nu \nu )+\text{jets}$ process overlaid by pileup events is the dominant background. We find that the $\sim 100{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ dataset at the LHC will be able to probe the colored fermion (scalar) quirks with masses up to 2.1 (1.1) TeV and the color neutral fermion (scalar) quirks with masses up to 450 (150) GeV, respectively.

Quirks are generic predictions of strongly-coupled dark sectors. For weak-scale masses and a broad range of confining scales in the dark sector, quirks can be discovered only at the energy frontier, but quirk-anti-quirk pairs are produced with unusual signatures at low p _T , making them difficult to detect at the large LHC detectors. We determine the prospects for discovering quirks using timing information at FASER, FASER2, and an “ultimate detector” in the far-forward region at the LHC. NLO QCD corrections are incorporated in the simulation of quirk production, which can significantly increase the production rate. To accurately propagate quirk pairs from the ATLAS interaction point to the forward detectors, the ionization energy loss of charged quirks traveling through matter, the radiation of infracolor glueballs and QCD hadrons during quirk pair oscillations, and the annihilation of quirkonium are properly considered. The quirk signal is separated from the large muon background using timing information from scintillator detectors by requiring either two coincident delayed tracks, based on arrival times at the detector, or two coincident slow tracks, based on time differences between hits in the front and back scintillators. We find that simple cuts preserve much of the signal, but reduce the muon background to negligible levels. With the data already collected, FASER can discover quirks in currently unconstrained parameter space. FASER2, running at the Forward Physics Facility during the HL-LHC era, will greatly extend this reach, probing the TeV-scale quirk masses motivated by the gauge hierarchy problem for the broad range of dark-sector confining scales between 100 eV and 100 keV.

We consider a $$SU(3)_c \times SU(3)_L \times U(1)_X$$S U ( 3 ) c × S U ( 3 ) L × U ( 1 ) X model from a SU(6) Grand Unified Theory (GUT). In order to explain the anomalous magnetic moments of muon and electron, we introduce two new scalar triplets without vacuum expectation values (VEVs) so that the leading contributions to $$\Delta a_{\mu }$$Δ a μ and $$\Delta a_{e}$$Δ a e can avoid the suppression from small muon mass. In addition, the Higgs potential stability of this 331 model is studied by giving a set of sufficient conditions to ensure the boundedness from below of the potential.