Signal and backgrounds for the single production of scalar and vector leptoquarks at the CERN LHC

We perform a detailed analysis of the potentiality of the CERN Large Hadron Collider to study the single production of leptoquarks via pp→e±q→ leptoquark →e± q, with e± generated by the splitting of photons radiated by the protons. Working with the most general SU(2)L⊗U( 1 )Y invariant effective Lagrangian for scalar and vector leptoquarks, we analyze in detail the leptoquark signals and backgrounds that lead to a final state containing an e± and a hard jet with approximately balanced transverse momenta. Our results indicate that the LHC will be able to discover leptoquarks with masses up to 2-3 TeV, depending on their type, for Yukawa couplings of the order of the electromagnetic one.