Excited Electron Production at the SPPC-based \(ep\) Colliders via Contact Interactions

If a linear electron accelerator is installed into the SPPC (Super Proton–Proton Collider) complex, \(ep\) collision options will be available in addition to \(pp\) collisions. We consider the production of excited electrons with spin-1/2 at the future SPPC-based electron–proton colliders with center-of-mass energies of \(8.44\), \(11.66\), \(26.68\), and \(36.88\) TeV. In the \(ep\rightarrow e^{\star }X\rightarrow e\gamma X\) signal process, excited electrons are produced by contact interactions and decay into the photon channel by gauge interactions. Taking into account the corresponding background process, the pseudorapidity and transverse momentum distributions of the final-state particles are plotted. We reported on the discovery, observation, and exclusion mass limits of excited electrons by applying appropriate kinematical cuts best suited for amplifying the signal of the excited electron signature. We also investigated the highest achievable values of the compositeness scale for the discovery of excited electrons at these colliders. Abstract Published by the Jagiellonian University 2025 authors