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Optimizing Polar Angle Asymmetry Observables at Colliders

Angular asymmetries are simple, intuitive, model-independent observables used to identify spins of new elementary particles. In the case of Drell-Yan-like boson resonances, we generalize the well-known center-edge angular asymmetry to optimize spin identification when only a limited sample of events is available. By choosing simple weight functions in integrals over the polar angle theta, such as cos theta to the nth power, we can improve spin discrimination significantly in production and decays of spin 0, 1, and 2 bosons. The power n can be tuned in particular cases, but n=2 (n=1) works well for any forward-backward symmetric (non-symmetric) decay to massless particles.