A Quirky Probe of Neutral Naturalness

Abstract

We consider the signals arising from top partner pair production at the LHC as a probe of theories of Neutral Naturalness. We focus on scenarios in which top partners carry electroweak charges, such as Folded SUSY or the Quirky Little Higgs. In this class of theories the top partners are pair produced as quirky bound states, since they are charged under a mirror color group whose lightest states are hidden glueballs. The quirks promptly de-excite and annihilate into glueballs, which decay back to SM fermions via Higgs mixing. This can give rise to spectacular signatures at the LHC, such displaced decays, or high-multiplicity prompt production of many hard $\bar b b$ or $τ^+ τ^-$ pairs. We show that signals arising from top partner pair production constitute the primary discovery channel for this class of theories in most regions of parameter space, and might provide the only experimental probe of scenarios with sub-cm glueball decay lengths. The measurement of top partner masses and couplings, which could be used to test the neutral naturalness mechanism directly, is also a tantalizing possibility.