Spin identification of graviton resonances in the process pp → [e.sup.+][e.sup.-] + X at the Large Hadron Collider

Prospects for discovering heavy graviton resonances in decays to an electron-positron pair and for identifying the nature of these resonances in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are investigated. Gravitons in the Randall-Sundrum model, which features extra spatial dimensions, are considered by way of example. A comparative analysis of effects of new different-spin heavy resonances, scalar [supersymmetric neutrino (sneutrino)], vector (new gauge Z' boson), and tensor (graviton) ones, is performed in order to identify the graviton spin. An identification of gravitons is performed by using the integrated center-edge asymmetry. For LHC, the graviton discovery (identification) reach is found to be 2.1 TeV (1.2 TeV) and 3.9 TeV (2.9 TeV) at a confidence level of 5σ (95%) for the graviton coupling constants of k/[[bar.M].sub.P1] = 0.01 and 0.1, respectively. This analysis is the most general, since, for the first time, it takes into account the possible existence of scalar resonances, which affects substantially quantitative estimates of the identification reach.