Probing new physics with τ-leptons at the LHC

Abstract

We discuss new physics that can show up in the ${\tau }^{+}{\tau }^{-}$ production process at the LHC but not in the dimuon or the dielectric channels. We consider three different generic possibilities: a new resonance in the Drell-Yan process in the form of a non-universal $Z^{\prime }$; a new non-resonant contribution to $q\overline{q}\to {\tau }^{+}{\tau }^{-}$ in the form of leptoquarks; and contributions from gluon fusion due to effective lepton gluonic couplings. We emphasize the use of the charge asymmetry both to discover new physics and to distinguish between different possibilities