Stringent dilepton bounds on left-right models using LHC data

In canonical left-right symmetric models the lower mass bounds on the charged gauge bosons are in the ballpark of 3–4 TeV, resulting in much stronger limits on the neutral gauge boson ZRZR, making its production unreachable at the LHC. However, if one evokes different patterns of left-right symmetry breaking the ZRZR might be lighter than the WR± motivating an independent ZRZR collider study. In this work, we use the 8 TeV ATLAS 20.3 fb−120.3 fb−1 luminosity data to derive robust bounds on the ZRZR mass using dilepton data. We find strong lower bounds on the ZRZR mass for different right-handed gauge couplings, excluding ZRZR masses up to ∼3.2 TeV∼3.2 TeV. For the canonical LR model we place a lower mass bound of ∼2.5 TeV∼2.5 TeV. Our findings are almost independent of the right-handed neutrino masses (∼2%∼2% effect) and applicable to general left-right models.