Unraveling the couplings of a Drell-Yan produced $Z^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ with heavy-flavor tagging

Despite no new physics so far at the LHC, a $Z^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ boson with $m_{Z^{\mathrm{\prime }}}\sim 100$ GeV could still emerge via Drell-Yan (DY) production, $q \bar q \to Z’ \to \mu^+ \mu^-$,inthenextfewyears\mathrm{.}Tounravelthenatureofthe$Z’$coupling,weutilizethe$c$-and$b$-tagging algorithms developed by ATLAS and CMS to investigate $cg\to c{Z}^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ at 14 TeV LHC. While light-jet contamination can be eliminated, mistagged $b$-jets cannot be rejected in any of the tagging schemes we adopt. On the other hand, for nonzero $bb{Z}^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ coupling, far superior $b$-tagging could discover the $bg\to b{Z}^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ process, where again light-jet mistag can be ruled out, but mistagged $c$-jets cannot yet be excluded. Provided that DY production is discovered soon enough, we find that a simultaneous search for $cg\to c{Z}^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ and $bg\to b{Z}^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ can conclusively discern the nature of $Z^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ couplings involved.