Probing the scale of new physics in the ZZγ coupling at e+e-colliders

Abstract

The = ZZγ triple neutral gauge couplings are absent in the Standard Model (SM) at the tree level. They receive no contributions from dimension-6 effective operators, but can arise from effective operators of dimension-8. We study the scale of new physics associated with such dimension-8 operators that can be probed by measuring the reaction,e+e- to Zγ followed by Z\to\ell\bar\ell,u\baru decays, at future e+e- colliders including the CEPC, FCC-ee, ILC and CLIC. We demonstrate how angular distributions of the final-state mono-photon and leptons can play a key rôle in suppressing SM backgrounds. We further demonstrate that using electron/positron beam polarizations can significantly improve the signal sensitivities. We find that the dimension-8 new physics scale can be probed up to the multi-TeV region at such lepton colliders.