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Showing papers on "Gauge boson published in 2016"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that LEP data on Z → γ γ decays provides significant constraints in this range and indeed up to the Z-mass, and also discussed the sensitivities of LHC and future colliders.

272 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Daniel Harlow1
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors revisited the question of reconstructing bulk gauge fields as boundary operators in AdS/CFT, and argued that this leads to a new argument for the "principle of completeness" which states that the charge lattice of a gauge theory coupled to gravity must be fully populated.
Abstract: This paper revisits the question of reconstructing bulk gauge fields as boundary operators in AdS/CFT. In the presence of the wormhole dual to the thermofield double state of two CFTs, the existence of bulk gauge fields is in some tension with the microscopic tensor factorization of the Hilbert space. I explain how this tension can be resolved by splitting the gauge field into charged constituents, and I argue that this leads to a new argument for the “principle of completeness”, which states that the charge lattice of a gauge theory coupled to gravity must be fully populated. I also claim that it leads to a new motivation for (and a clarification of) the “weak gravity conjecture”, which I interpret as a strengthening of this principle. This setup gives a simple example of a situation where describing low-energy bulk physics in CFT language requires knowledge of high-energy bulk physics. This contradicts to some extent the notion of “effective conformal field theory”, but in fact is an expected feature of the resolution of the black hole information problem. An analogous factorization issue exists also for the gravitational field, and I comment on several of its implications for reconstructing black hole interiors and the emergence of spacetime more generally.

242 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the generic features of minimal gauge extensions of the Standard Model were studied in view of recent hints of lepton-flavor non-universality in semi-leptonic b → s l + l − and b → c l ν decays.

242 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The protophobic X boson may also alleviate the current 3.6σ discrepancy between the predicted and measured values of the muon's anomalous magnetic moment.
Abstract: Recently a 6.8σ anomaly has been reported in the opening angle and invariant mass distributions of e^{+}e^{-} pairs produced in ^{8}Be nuclear transitions. The data are explained by a 17 MeV vector gauge boson X that is produced in the decay of an excited state to the ground state, ^{8}Be^{*}→^{8}Be X, and then decays through X→e^{+}e^{-}. The X boson mediates a fifth force with a characteristic range of 12 fm and has millicharged couplings to up and down quarks and electrons, and a proton coupling that is suppressed relative to neutrons. The protophobic X boson may also alleviate the current 3.6σ discrepancy between the predicted and measured values of the muon's anomalous magnetic moment.

191 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a dark sector model based on measuring the L petertodd μ� − L petertodd τ>>\s symmetry that addresses anomalies in b → sμ�� + μ� − decays and that features a particle dark matter candidate.
Abstract: We present a dark sector model based on gauging the L μ − L τ symmetry that addresses anomalies in b → sμ + μ − decays and that features a particle dark matter candidate. The dark matter particle candidate is a vector-like Dirac fermion coupled to the Z′ gauge boson of the L μ − L τ symmetry. We compute the dark matter thermal relic density, its pair-annihilation cross section, and the loop-suppressed dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section, and compare our predictions with current and future experimental results. We demonstrate that after taking into account bounds from B s meson oscillations, dark matter direct detection, and the CMB, the model is highly predictive: B physics anomalies and a viable particle dark matter candidate, with a mass of ∼ (5 − 23) GeV, can be accommodated only in a tightly-constrained region of parameter space, with sharp predictions for future experimental tests. The viable region of parameter space expands if the dark matter is allowed to have L μ − L τ charges that are smaller than those of the SM leptons.

189 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an exhaustive classification of effective field theories in the form of effective fields, paying special attention to new classes of models where the strong dynamics involves, along with the Higgs boson, the SM gauge bosons and/or the fermions.
Abstract: Even though the Standard Model (SM) is weakly coupled at the Fermi scale, a new strong dynamics involving its degrees of freedom may conceivably lurk at slightly higher energies, in the multi TeV range. Approximate symmetries provide a structurally robust context where, within the low energy description, the dimensionless SM couplings are weak, while the new strong dynamics manifests itself exclusively through higher-derivative interactions. We present an exhaustive classification of such scenarios in the form of effective field theories, paying special attention to new classes of models where the strong dynamics involves, along with the Higgs boson, the SM gauge bosons and/or the fermions. The IR softness of the new dynamics suppresses its effects at LEP energies, but deviations are in principle detectable at the LHC, even at energies below the threshold for production of new states. We believe our construction provides the so far unique structurally robust context where to motivate several LHC searches in Higgs physics, diboson production, or W W scattering. Perhaps surprisingly, the interplay between weak coupling, strong coupling and derivatives, which is controlled by symmetries, can override the naive expansion in operator dimension, providing instances where dimension-8 dominates dimension-6, well within the domain of validity of the low energy effective theory. This result reveals the limitations of an analysis that is both ambitiously general and restricted to dimension-6 operators.

176 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study chirality-flipping couplings of the top quark to Higgs and gauge bosons and investigate direct and indirect contributions to high and low-energy observables.
Abstract: Working in the framework of the Standard Model effective field theory, we study chirality-flipping couplings of the top quark to Higgs and gauge bosons. We discuss in detail the renormalization-group evolution to lower energies and investigate direct and indirect contributions to high- and low-energy $CP$-conserving and $CP$-violating observables. Our analysis includes constraints from collider observables, precision electroweak tests, flavor physics, and electric dipole moments. We find that indirect probes are competitive or dominant for both $CP$-even and $CP$-odd observables, even after accounting for uncertainties associated with hadronic and nuclear matrix elements, illustrating the importance of including operator mixing in constraining the Standard Model effective field theory. We also study scenarios where multiple anomalous top couplings are generated at the high scale, showing that while the bounds on individual couplings relax, strong correlations among couplings survive. Finally, we find that enforcing minimal flavor violation does not significantly affect the bounds on the top couplings.

174 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the possibility of interpreting the diphoton excess at 750GeV as a spin-two massive particle (such as a Kaluza-Klein graviton in warped extra-dimensions) which serves as a mediator to Dark Matter via its gravitational couplings to the dark sector and to the Standard Model (SM).

173 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The chiral anomaly provides smoking-gun evidence of a new confining gauge theory and predicts exotic hadrons such as a color-octet scalar and baryons within the reach of the LHC experiment.
Abstract: The chiral anomaly provides smoking-gun evidence of a new confining gauge theory. Motivated by a reported event excess in a diphoton invariant mass distribution at the LHC, we discuss a scenario that a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone (PNG) boson of a new QCD-like theory is produced by gluon fusion and decays into a pair of the standard model gauge bosons. Despite the strong dynamics, the production cross section and the decay widths are determined by an anomaly matching condition. The excess can be explained by the PNG boson with mass of around 750 GeV. The model also predicts exotic hadrons such as a color-octet scalar and baryons. Some of them are within the reach of the LHC experiment.

168 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of new physics at the electroweak scale were studied using LHC data and the effective Lagrangian expansion (ELG) framework, and the results showed that the triple gauge vertices lead to a significant improvement in the entire set of operators describing Higgs couplings.
Abstract: The effective Lagrangian expansion provides a framework to study effects of new physics at the electroweak scale. To make full use of LHC data in constraining higher-dimensional operators we need to include both the Higgs and the electroweak gauge sector in our study. We first present an analysis of the relevant di-boson production LHC results to update constraints on triple gauge boson couplings. Our bounds are several times stronger than those obtained from LEP data. Next, we show how in combination with Higgs measurements the triple gauge vertices lead to a significant improvement in the entire set of operators, including operators describing Higgs couplings.

155 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
J. P. Lees1, V. Poireau1, V. Tisserand1, E. Grauges2  +229 moreInstitutions (68)
TL;DR: In this paper, a search for a dark boson Z′ coupling with the second and third generations of leptons in the reaction e+e− → μ+μ− Z′,Z′ → μ +μ− using 514 fb^(−1) of data collected by the BABAR experiment is reported, but no significant signal is observed for Z′ masses in the range 0.212-10 GeV.
Abstract: Many models of physics beyond the standard model predict the existence of new Abelian forces with new gauge bosons mediating interactions between “dark sectors” and the standard model. We report a search for a dark boson Z′ coupling only to the second and third generations of leptons in the reaction e+e− → μ+μ− Z′,Z′ → μ+μ− using 514 fb^(−1) of data collected by the BABAR experiment. No significant signal is observed for Z′ masses in the range 0.212–10 GeV. Limits on the coupling parameter g′ as low as 7×10^(−4) are derived, leading to improvements in the bounds compared to those previously derived from neutrino experiments.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors revisited the production of baryon asymmetries in the minimal type I seesaw model with heavy Majorana singlets in the GeV range and showed that future measurements from SHiP and neutrinoless double beta decay could in principle provide sufficient information to predict the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe.
Abstract: We revisit the production of baryon asymmetries in the minimal type I seesaw model with heavy Majorana singlets in the GeV range. In particular we include “washout” effects from scattering processes with gauge bosons, Higgs decays and inverse decays, besides the dominant top scatterings. We show that in the minimal model with two singlets, and for an inverted light neutrino ordering, future measurements from SHiP and neutrinoless double beta decay could in principle provide sufficient information to predict the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. We also show that SHiP measurements could provide very valuable information on the PMNS CP phases.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present predictions for top quark pair production in association with a Z-boson or a photon at the LHC directly probing neutral top-quark couplings.
Abstract: Top quark pair production in association with a Z-boson or a photon at the LHC directly probes neutral top-quark couplings. We present predictions for these two processes in the Standard Model (SM) Effective Field Theory (EFT) at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD. We include the full set of CP-even dimension-six operators that enter the top-quark interactions with the SM gauge bosons. For comparison, we also present predictions in the SMEFT for top loop-induced HZ production at the LHC and for $$ t\overline{t} $$ production at the ILC at NLO in QCD. Results for total cross sections and differential distributions are obtained and uncertainties coming from missing higher orders in the strong coupling and in the EFT expansions are discussed. NLO results matched to the parton shower are available, allowing for event generation to be directly employed in an experimental analyses. Our framework provides a solid basis for the interpretation of current and future measurements in the SMEFT, with improved accuracy and precision.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors considered a dark matter scenario in the minimal gauged version of the Standard Model (SM), where the global baryon number minus lepton number symmetry in the SM is gauged, and three generations of right-handed neutrinos and a Higgs field are introduced.
Abstract: We consider a concise dark matter scenario in the minimal gauged $B-L$ extension of the Standard Model (SM), where the global $B-L$ (baryon number minus lepton number) symmetry in the SM is gauged, and three generations of right-handed neutrinos and a $B-L$ Higgs field are introduced. Associated with the $B-L$ gauge symmetry breaking by a VEV of the $B-L$ Higgs field, the seesaw mechanism for generating the neutrino mass is automatically implemented after the electroweak symmetry breaking in the SM. In this model context, we introduce a $Z_2$-parity and assign an odd parity for one right-handed neutrino while even parities for the other fields. Therefore, the dark matter candidate is identified as the right-handed Majorana neutrino with odd $Z_2$ parity, keeping the minimality of the particle content intact. When the dark matter particle communicates with the SM particles mainly through the $B-L$ gauge boson ($Z^\prime_{BL}$ boson), its relic abundance is determined by only three free parameters, the $B-L$ gauge coupling ($\alpha_{BL}$), the $Z^\prime_{BL}$ boson mass ($m_{Z^\prime}$) and the dark matter mass ($m_{DM}$). With the cosmological upper bound on the dark matter relic abundance we find a lower bound on $\alpha_{BL}$ as a function of $m_{Z^\prime}$. On the other hand, we interpret the recent LHC Run-2 results on search for $Z^\prime$ boson resonance to an upper bound on $\alpha_{BL}$ as a function of $m_{Z^\prime}$. Combining the two results we identify an allowed parameter region for this "$Z^\prime_{BL}$ portal" dark matter scenario, which turns out to be a narrow window with the lower mass bound of $m_{Z^\prime} > 2.5$ TeV.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a dark sector model based on measuring the $L_\mu - L_\tau$ symmetry that addresses anomalies in $b \rightarrow s \mu + \mu+ \mu^+) decays and that features a particle dark matter candidate.
Abstract: We present a dark sector model based on gauging the $L_\mu - L_\tau$ symmetry that addresses anomalies in $b \rightarrow s \mu^+ \mu^-$ decays and that features a particle dark matter candidate. The dark matter particle candidate is a vector-like Dirac fermion coupled to the $Z^\prime$ gauge boson of the $L_{\mu}-L_{\tau}$ symmetry. We compute the dark matter thermal relic density, its pair-annihilation cross section, and the loop-suppressed dark matter-nucleon scattering cross section, and compare our predictions with current and future experimental results. We demonstrate that after taking into account bounds from $B_s$ meson oscillations, dark matter direct detection, and the CMB, the model is highly predictive: $B$ physics anomalies and a viable particle dark matter candidate, with a mass of $\sim (5-23)$~GeV, can be accommodated only in a tightly-constrained region of parameter space, with sharp predictions for future experimental tests. The viable region of parameter space expands if the dark matter is allowed to have $L_\mu-L_\tau$ charges that are smaller than those of the SM leptons.

Journal ArticleDOI
Georges Aad1, Brad Abbott2, Jalal Abdallah3, Ovsat Abdinov4  +2898 moreInstitutions (215)
TL;DR: In this paper, measurements of W(+/-)Z production in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV were presented, where the gauge bosons were reconstructed using their leptonic decay modes into electrons and m...
Abstract: This paper presents measurements of W(+/-)Z production in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The gauge bosons are reconstructed using their leptonic decay modes into electrons and m ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that EYM amplitudes satisfy U(1) decoupling relations similar to Kleiss-Kuijf relations for Yang-Mills amplitudes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider a range of widths for S, from 5 GeV to 45 GeV, and find that the three channels probe complementary regions of parameter space and the suppression scale Λ.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of new physics at the electroweak scale were studied using LHC data and the effective Lagrangian expansion (ELG) framework, and the results showed that the triple gauge vertices lead to a significant improvement in the entire set of operators describing Higgs couplings.
Abstract: The effective Lagrangian expansion provides a framework to study effects of new physics at the electroweak scale. To make full use of LHC data in constraining higher-dimensional operators we need to include both the Higgs and the electroweak gauge sector in our study. We first present an analysis of the relevant di-boson production LHC results to update constraints on triple gauge boson couplings. Our bounds are several times stronger than those obtained from LEP data. Next, we show how in combination with Higgs measurements the triple gauge vertices lead to a significant improvement in the entire set of operators, including operators describing Higgs couplings.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explain the recent diphoton excesses around 750 GeV by both ATLAS and CMS as a singlet scalar, which couples to SM gluon and neutral gauge bosons only through higher-dimensional operators.
Abstract: We explain the recent diphoton excesses around 750 GeV by both ATLAS and CMS as a singlet scalar $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}$ which couples to SM gluon and neutral gauge bosons only through higher-dimensional operators. A natural explanation is that $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}$ is a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB) which receives parity violation through anomaly if there exists a hidden strong dynamics. The singlet and other light pNGBs will decay into two SM gauge bosons and even serves as the metastable colored states which can be probed in the future. By accurately measuring their relative decay and the total production rate in the future, we will learn the underlying strong dynamics parameter. The lightest baryon in this confining theory could serve as a viable dark matter candidate.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the rate of production of light vector bosons (LVBs) from nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung reactions in hot and dense matter was calculated using the soft-radiation approximation and express the rates directly in terms of the measured nucleon and nucleon elastic differential cross sections.
Abstract: We calculate the rate of production of hypothetical light vector bosons (LVBs) from nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung reactions in hot and dense matter. We use the soft-radiation approximation and express the rates directly in terms of the measured nucleon-nucleon elastic differential cross sections. These results are combined with the observation of neutrinos from supernova SN1987a to deduce constraints on the couplings of vector bosons with masses $\ensuremath{\lesssim}200$ MeV to either electric charge (dark photons) or to baryon number. We establish for the first time strong constraints on LVB that couple only to baryon number and revise earlier constraints on the dark photon. For the latter, we find that the excluded region of parameter space is diminished by about a factor of 10.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the Higgs boson arises as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB) and top-partners arise as bound states of three hyperfermions.
Abstract: We continue our investigation of gauge theories in which the Higgs boson arises as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB) and top-partners arise as bound states of three hyperfermions. All models have additional pNGBs in their spectrum that should be accessible at LHC. We analyze the patterns of symmetry breaking and present all relevant couplings of the pNGBs with the gauge fields. We discuss how vacuum misalignment and a mass for the pNGBs is generated by a loop-induced potential. Finally, we paint a very broad, qualitative, picture of the kind of experimental signatures these models give rise to, setting the stage for further analysis.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, renormalized Higgs boson couplings with gauge bosons and fermions at the one-loop level in the model with an additional isospin singlet real scalar field were calculated.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the discovery potential at hadron colliders of high-mass right-handed (RH) gauge bosons was examined and an alternative signature for WR → N decays was investigated, where the produced neutrinos are highly boosted in this mass regime.
Abstract: We reexamine the discovery potential at hadron colliders of high-mass right-handed (RH) gauge bosons WR—an inherent ingredient of left-right symmetric models (LRSM).We focus on the regime where theWR is very heavy compared to the heavy Majorana neutrino N, and we investigate an alternative signature for WR → N decays. The produced neutrinos are highly boosted in this mass regime. Subsequently, their decays via off-shell WR bosons to jets, i.e., N → ljj, are highly collimated, forming a single neutrino jet ðjNÞ. The final-state collider signature is then ljN, instead of the widely studied lljj. Present search strategies are not sensitive to this hierarchical mass regime due to the breakdown of the collider signature definition. We take into account QCD corrections beyond next-to-leading order (NLO) that are important for high-mass Drell-Yan processes at the 13 TeV Large Hadron Collider (LHC). For the first time, we evaluate WR production at NLO with threshold resummation at next-to-next-to-leading logarithm (NNLL) matched to the threshold-improved parton distributions. With these improvements, we find that a WR of mass MWR ¼ 3ð4Þ½5 TeV and mass ratio of ðmN=MWR Þ < 0.1 can be discovered with a 5–6σ statistical significance at 13 TeVafter 10ð100Þ½2000 fb−1 of data. Extending the analysis to the hypothetical 100 TeV Very Large Hadron Collider (VLHC), 5σ can be obtained for WR masses up to MWR ¼ 15ð30Þ with approximately 100 fb−1 (10 ab−1). Conversely, with 0.9ð10Þ½150 fb−1 of 13 TeV data, MWR <3ð4Þ½5 TeV and ðmN=MWR Þ < 0.1 can be excluded at 95% C.L.; with 100 fb−1 (2.5 ab−1) of 100 TeV data, MWR < 22ð33Þ TeV can be excluded.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that the exchange of Glauber gluons cancels for the considered observable for the double Drell-Yan production (the double parton scattering process in which a pair of electroweak gauge bosons is produced) both for the integrated cross section and for the cross section differential in the transverse boson momenta.
Abstract: An essential part of any factorisation proof is the demonstration that the exchange of Glauber gluons cancels for the considered observable. We show this cancellation at all orders for double Drell-Yan production (the double parton scattering process in which a pair of electroweak gauge bosons is produced) both for the integrated cross section and for the cross section differential in the transverse boson momenta. In the process of constructing this proof, we also revisit and clarify some issues regarding the Glauber cancellation argument and its relation to the rest of the factorisation proof for the single Drell-Yan process.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the theory space of compositeness models with top partners and find that all of them contain a singlet, $a$, which couples to Standard Model gauge bosons via Wess-Zumino-Witten interactions, thus providing a resonance in the diboson at the LHC.
Abstract: Models of compositeness can successfully address the origin of the Higgs boson, as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB) of a spontaneously broken global symmetry, and flavor physics via the partial compositeness mechanism. If the dynamics is generated by a confining gauge group with fermionic matter content, there exists only a finite set of models that have the correct properties to account for the Higgs and top partners at the same time. In this paper, we explore the theory space of this class of models; remarkably, all of them contain---beyond the pNGB Higgs---a pNGB singlet, $a$, which couples to Standard Model gauge bosons via Wess-Zumino-Witten interactions, thus providing naturally a resonance in the diboson at the LHC. With the assumption that the recently reported diphoton excess at 750 GeV at the LHC arises from the $a$ resonance, we propose a generic approach on how to delineate the best candidate for composite Higgs models with top partners. We find that constraints from other diboson searches severely reduce the theory space of the models under consideration. For the models which can explain the diphoton excess, we make precise and testable predictions for the width and other diboson resonance searches.

Book ChapterDOI
11 Nov 2016
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the physics of the Standard Model Higgs boson, discuss its main search channels at hadron colliders and the corresponding theoretical predictions, and summarize the strategies to study its basic properties.
Abstract: The major goal of the Large Hadron Collider is to probe the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism and the generation of the elementary particle masses. In the Standard Model this mechanism leads to the existence of a scalar Higgs boson with unique properties. We review the physics of the Standard Model Higgs boson, discuss its main search channels at hadron colliders and the corresponding theoretical predictions. We also summarize the strategies to study its basic properties.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, direct and indirect probes of chirality-flipping couplings of the top quark to Higgs and gauge bosons were discussed in the framework of the Standard Model effective field theory.
Abstract: We discuss direct and indirect probes of chirality-flipping couplings of the top quark to Higgs and gauge bosons, considering both CP-conserving and CP-violating observables, in the framework of the Standard Model effective field theory. In our analysis we include current and prospective constraints from collider physics, precision electroweak tests, flavor physics, and electric dipole moments (EDMs). We find that low-energy indirect probes are very competitive, even after accounting for long-distance uncertainties. In particular, EDMs put constraints on the electroweak CP-violating dipole moments of the top that are two to three orders of magnitude stronger than existing limits. The new indirect constraint on the top EDM is given by $|d_t| < 5 \cdot 10^{-20}$ e cm at $90\%$ C.L.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a new heavy spinless particle is produced in gluon fusion at the LHC and decays to a couple of lighter pseudoscalars which then decay to photons.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed and experimentally demonstrated a digital quantum simulation of the paradigmatic Schwinger model, a U(1)-Wilson lattice gauge theory describing the interplay between fermionic matter and gauge bosons.
Abstract: Lattice gauge theories describe fundamental phenomena in nature, but calculating their real-time dynamics on classical computers is notoriously difficult. In a recent publication [Nature 534, 516 (2016)], we proposed and experimentally demonstrated a digital quantum simulation of the paradigmatic Schwinger model, a U(1)-Wilson lattice gauge theory describing the interplay between fermionic matter and gauge bosons. Here, we provide a detailed theoretical analysis of the performance and the potential of this protocol. Our strategy is based on analytically integrating out the gauge bosons, which preserves exact gauge invariance but results in complicated long-range interactions between the matter fields. Trapped-ion platforms are naturally suited to implementing these interactions, allowing for an efficient quantum simulation of the model, with a number of gate operations that scales only polynomially with system size. Employing numerical simulations, we illustrate that relevant phenomena can be observed in larger experimental systems, using as an example the production of particle--antiparticle pairs after a quantum quench. We investigate theoretically the robustness of the scheme towards generic error sources, and show that near-future experiments can reach regimes where finite-size effects are insignificant. We also discuss the challenges in quantum simulating the continuum limit of the theory. Using our scheme, fundamental phenomena of lattice gauge theories can be probed using a broad set of experimentally accessible observables, including the entanglement entropy and the vacuum persistence amplitude.