We study the gold-plated purely leptonic signal and background rates at the CERN LHC for the ZZ, ${\mathit{W}}^{+}$${\mathit{W}}^{\mathrm{-}}$, ${\mathit{W}}^{\pm }$Z, and ${\mathit{W}}^{\pm }$${\mathit{W}}^{\pm }$ final states associated with strongly interacting electroweak symmetry breaking. We work at an energy of √s =14 TeV, and develop a combination of back-to-back leptonic, central-jet-vetoing, and forward-jet-tagging cuts that suppresses the standard-model backgrounds. We find that the LHC with an annual luminosity of 100 ${\mathrm{fb}}^{\mathrm{-}1}$ will achieve a reasonably good sensitivity to the physics of strongly interacting electroweak symmetry breaking.

• Received 1 May 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.52.3878