Quark Excitations Through the Prism of Direct Photon Plus Jet at the LHC

The quest to know the structure of matter has resulted in various theoretical speculations wherein additional colored fermions are postulated. Arising either as Kaluza-Klein excitations of ordinary quarks, or as excited states in scenarios wherein the quarks themselves are composites, or even in theories with extended gauge symmetry, the presence of such fermions ($q^*$) can potentially be manifested in $\gamma + jet$ final states at the LHC. Using unitarized amplitudes and the CMS setup, we demonstrate that in the initial phase of LHC operation (with an integrated luminosity of $200 \pb^{-1}$) one can discover such states for a mass upto 2.0 TeV. The discovery of a $q^*$ with a mass as large as $\sim$5 TeV can be acheived for an integrated luminosity of $\sim 140 \fb^{-1}$. We also comment on the feasibility of mass determination.