Signatures of technicolor models with the GIM mechanism Original Research Article

We investigate the production and the decays of pseudo-Goldstone bosons (PGBs) predicted by technicolor theories with the GIM mechanism (TC-GIM). The TC-GIM models contain exotic fermion families that do not interact under weak SU(2), but they do have color and hypercharge interactions. These fetmions form PGBs, which are the lightest exotic particles in the TC-GIM models. The spectrum of PGBs consists of color octets, leptoquarks and neutral particles. The masses of leptoquarks and color octets depend on a free parameter—the scale of confining interactions. Characteristic for TC-GIM models is a very light (≈ GeV) neutral particle with anomalous couplings to gauge boson pairs. We show how current experiments constrain the free parameters of the models. The best tests are provided by the pp pp → TT and e+e− → P0γ reactions. Experiments at LHC and NLC can find PGBs of TC-GIM models in a wide range of parameter space. However, TC-GIM models can be distinguished from other TC models only if several PGBs are discovered.