At the LHC, a TeV-scale leptoquark (LQ) that decays dominantly to a top quark ($t$) and a light charged lepton ($\ell=e,μ$) would form a resonance system of \emph{boosted-$t$ $+$ high-$p_{\rm T}$-$\ell$}. We consider all possible vector LQ models within the Buchmüller-Rückl-Wyler classifications with the desired decay. We propose simple phenomenological Lagrangians that are suitable for bottom-up/experimental studies and, at the same time, can cover the relevant parameter spaces of these models. In this simplified framework, we study the pair and single production channels of vector LQs at the LHC. Interestingly, we find that, like the pair production, the cross sections of some single production processes also depend on the parameter $κ$ that appears in the gluon-vector LQ coupling. We adopt a search strategy of selecting events with at least one boosted hadronic top quark and exactly two high-$p_{\rm T}$ leptons of the same flavor and opposite sign. This combines events from the pair and single production processes and, therefore, can enhance the discovery potential beyond that of the pair-production-only searches. For $5σ$ discovery we find that vector LQs can be probed up to $2.55$ TeV for $100\%$ branching ratio in the $t\ell $ decay mode and $\mathcal{O}(1)$ new couplings at the $14$ TeV LHC with $3$ ab$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity.
Top partner searches are one of the key aspects of new physics analyses at the LHC. We correct an earlier statement that supersymmetric top searches based on decays to semileptonic tops are not promising. Reconstructing the direction of the boosted leptonic top quark and correlating it with the measured missing transverse energy vector allows us to reduce the top pair background to an easily manageable level. In addition, reconstructing the full momentum of the leptonic top quark determines the stop mass based on an M_{T2} endpoint.
The LHC search strategies for leptoquarks that couple dominantly to a top quark are different than for the ones that couple mostly to the light quarks. We consider charge $1/3$ ($ϕ_1$) and $5/3$ ($ϕ_5$) scalar leptoquarks that can decay to a top quark and a charged lepton ($t\ell$) giving rise to a resonance system of a boosted top and a high-$p_{\rm T}$ lepton. We introduce simple phenomenological models suitable for bottom-up studies and explicitly map them to all possible scalar leptoquark models within the Buchmüller-Rückl-Wyler classifications that can have the desired decays. We study pa…
We investigate existing and future hadron-collider constraints on the top dipole chromomagnetic and chromoelectric moments, two quantities that are expected to be modified in the presence of new physics. We focus first on recent measurements of the inclusive top pair production cross section at the Tevatron and at the Large Hadron Collider. We then analyse the role of top-antitop events produced at very large invariant masses, in the context of the forthcoming 13-14 TeV runs of the LHC, and at a future 100 TeV proton-proton collider. In this latter case, the selection of semileptonic decays to…
Top taggers which identify and reconstruct boosted top quarks have been established as novel tools for a multitude of LHC analyses. We show how single top production in association with a light-flavor or bottom jet can be observed in the boosted phase space regime. The full top reconstruction as part of the tagging algorithm allows us to define a distinctive kinematic angle which clearly separates different single top production processes.
The $t\bar t$ plus missing energy channel is one of the most efficient to detect third-generation leptoquarks (LQs). It offers an important test to models which explain flavor anomalies in $B$ meson decays. We outline a search strategy in the channel, relying on tagging the tops and on observables constructed out of the tops, and we assess the reach on LQs of the future high-luminosity LHC program. We find that with 3 ab$^{-1}$ a vector (scalar) LQ decaying 50% (100%) to top and neutrino can be excluded up to masses of 1.96 TeV (1.54 TeV). We also indicate several observables that, in case of …
We study techniques for identifying highly boosted top jets, where the subsequent top decay products are not isolated. For hadronic boosted tops, we consider variables which probe the jet substructure in order to reduce the background from QCD jets with large invariant mass. Substructure variables related to two-body kinematics are least sensitive to the modeling of parton shower, while those which involve multi-body kinematics may still have discrimination power. For leptonic boosted tops, we consider variables which characterize the separation between the lepton--although not isolated by con…
Naturalness considerations, together with the non-observation of superpartners of the Standard Model particles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) so far, favor supersymmetric (SUSY) models in which third generation squarks are significantly lighter than those of the first two generations. In such models, gluino pair-production is typically the dominant SUSY production process at the LHC, and it often leads to final states with multiple top quarks. Some of these top quarks may be relativistic in the lab frame, in which case their hadronic decays may produce "top jets". We propose that the recen…
We propose a new technique for measuring the polarization of hadronically decaying boosted top quarks. In particular, we apply a subjet-based technique to events where the decay products of the top are clustered within a single jet. The technique requires neither b-tagging nor W-reconstruction, and does not rely on assumptions about either the top production mechanism or the sources of missing energy in the event. We include results for various new physics scenarios made with different Monte Carlo generators to demonstrate the robustness of the technique.
Search strategies for the third-generation leptoquarks (LQs) are distinct from other LQ searches, especially when they decay to a top quark and a $τ$ lepton. We investigate the cases of all TeV-scale scalar and vector LQs that decay to either a top-tau pair (charge-$1/3$ and $5/3$ LQs) or a top-neutrino pair (charge-$2/3$ LQs). One can then use the boosted top (which can be tagged efficiently using jet-substructure techniques) and high-$p_{\rm T}$ $τ$ leptons to search for these LQs. We consider two search channels with either one or two taus along with at least one hadronically decaying boost…
A method is introduced for distinguishing top jets (boosted, hadronically decaying top quarks) from light quark and gluon jets using jet substructure. The procedure involves parsing the jet cluster to resolve its subjets, and then imposing kinematic constraints. With this method, light quark or gluon jets with pT ~ 1 TeV can be rejected with an efficiency of around 99% while retaining up to 40% of top jets. This reduces the dijet background to heavy t-tbar resonances by a factor of ~10,000, thereby allowing resonance searches in t-tbar to be extended into the all-hadronic channel. In addition,…
We present a procedure for tagging boosted semi-leptonic $t\bar t$ events based on the Template Overlap Method. We introduce a new formulation of the template overlap function for leptonically decaying boosted tops and show that it can be used to compensate for the loss of background rejection due to reduction of b-tagging efficiency at high $p_T$. A study of asymmetric top pair production due to higher order effects shows that our approach improves the resolution of the truth level kinematic distributions. We show that the hadronic top overlap is weakly susceptible to pileup up to 50 interact…
We study jet substructures of a boosted polarized top quark, which undergoes the hadronic decay $t\to b u\bar d$, in the perturbative QCD framework, focusing on the energy profile and the differential energy profile. These substructures are factorized into the convolution of a hard top-quark decay kernel with a bottom-quark jet function and a $W$-boson jet function, where the latter is further factorized into the convolution of a hard $W$-boson decay kernel with two light-quark jet functions. Computing the hard kernels to leading order in QCD and including the resummation effect in the jet fun…
The hierarchy problem can by addressed by extending the four-dimensional space-time to include an extra compact spatial dimension with non-trivial "warped" metric, as first suggested by Randall and Sundrum. If the Randall-Sundrum framework is realized in string theory, and if the Standard Model particles propagate in the extra dimension, Regge excitations of the Standard Model states should appear around the TeV scale. In a previous publication, we proposed a field-theoretic framework to model the tensor (spin-2) Regge partner of the gluon. Here, we use this framework to study the collider phe…
Cross sections for top quarks provide very interesting physics opportunities, being both sensitive to new physics and also perturbatively tractable due to the large top quark mass. Rigorous factorization theorems for top cross sections can be derived in several kinematic scenarios, including the boosted regime in the peak region that we consider here. In the context of the corresponding factorization theorem for $e^+e^-$ collisions we extract the last missing ingredient that is needed to evaluate the cross section differential in the jet-mass at two-loop order, namely the matching coefficient …
Top quarks produced in multi-TeV processes will have large Lorentz boosts, and their decay products will be highly collimated. In semileptonic decay modes, this often leads to the merging of the b-jet and the hard lepton according to standard event reconstructions, which can complicate new physics searches. Here we explore ways of efficiently recovering this signal in the muon channel at the LHC. We perform a particle-level study of events with muons produced inside of boosted tops, as well as in generic QCD jets and from W-strahlung off of hard quarks. We characterize the discriminating power…
The quest for new heavy states is a critical component of the LHC physics program. In this letter, we study the search for pseudoscalar bosons produced in association with a $t\bar{t}$ pair. We consider the final state $t\bar{t} A \to t\bar{t} b\bar{b}$ with di-leptonic top pair signature, and reconstruct the boosted $A \to b\bar{b}$ candidate with jet substructure techniques, achieving a remarkable sensitivity over a broad range of pseudoscalar masses and Yukawa couplings. We apply this strategy to a Type-I Two-Higgs-Doublet Model, demonstrating its ability to probe a realistic, UV-complete e…
Anomalies in recent LHCb, Belle and Babar measurements of $R_{D^{(*)}}$, and $R_{K^{(*)}}$ in $B$ decays may indicate the new physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). The leptoquarks ($LQ$) that couple to the $3^{\mathrm{rd}}$ generation quarks and leptons have been proposed as a viable new physics (NP) explanation. Such left-handed $LQ$s can couple to both bottom and top quarks. Since top particles decay before the hadronization, it is possible to reconstruct chirality of boosted top quarks and consequently the chirality of top coupling to the $LQ$s. We perform analysis on the top quark's chir…
We study high-pt jets from QCD and from highly-boosted massive particles such as tops, W, Z and Higgs, and argue that infrared-safe observables can help reduce QCD backgrounds. Jets from QCD are characterized by different patterns of energy flow compared to the products of highly-boosted heavy particle decays, and we employ a variety of jet shapes, observables restricted to energy flow within a jet, to explore this difference. Results from Monte Carlo generators and arguments based on perturbation theory support the discriminating power of the shapes we refer to as planar flow and angularities…
We propose a novel jet substructure observable of boosted tops that is related to the linear polarization of the $W$ boson in boosted top quark decay, which results in a $\cos2ϕ$ angular correlation between the $t\to bW$ and $W\to f\bar{f'}$ decay planes. We discuss in detail the origin of such linear polarization by applying Wigner's little group transformation. We show that the unique $\cos2ϕ$ angular correlation only exists in the boosted regime but not in the top quark rest frame. We construct an experimental observable for such correlation based on the transverse energy deposition asymmet…
Observables sensitive to top quark polarization are important for characterizing or even discovering new physics. The most powerful spin analyzer in top decay is the down-type fermion from the W, which in the case of leptonic decay allows for very clean measurements. However, in many applications it is useful to measure the polarization of hadronically decaying top quarks. Usually it is assumed that at most 50% of the spin analyzing power can be recovered in this case. This paper introduces a simple and truly optimal hadronic spin analyzer, with a power of 64% at leading-order. The improvement…
Measuring top polarization is extremely important in understanding any new physics that couples to top quark. Here, we take up the task of extracting polarization of top quark coming from TeV-scale stop decay at the upgraded high luminosity and high energy LHC. We focus on the scenario where the two tops from the stop decay lead to semi-leptonic final state. We take into account all relevant backgrounds and put kinematical cuts to suppress them. We arrive at a signal region where the desired signal can be observed with reasonable significance. Next, we examine, in such signal regions, how well…
A future proton-proton collider with center of mass energy around 100 TeV will have a remarkable capacity to discover massive new particles and continue exploring weak scale naturalness. In this work we will study its sensitivity to two stop simplified models as further examples of its potential power: pair production of stops that decay to tops or bottoms and higgsinos; and stops that are either pair produced or produced together with a gluino and then cascade down through gluinos to the lightest superpartner (LSP). In both simplified models, super-boosted tops or bottoms with transverse mome…
Characterizing the 125 GeV Higgs is a critical component of the physics program at the LHC Run II. In this Letter, we consider $t\bar{t}H$ associated production in the dileptonic mode. We demonstrate that the difference in azimuthal angle between the leptons from top decays can directly reveal the CP-structure of the top-Higgs coupling with the sensitivity of the measurement substantiality enhanced in the boosted Higgs regime. We first show how to access this channel via $H \to b\bar{b}$ jet-substructure tagging, then demonstrate the ability of the new variable to measure CP. Our analysis incl…
A proton-proton collider with center of mass energy around 100 TeV is the energy frontier machine that is likely to succeed the LHC. One of the primary physics goals will be the continued exploration of weak scale naturalness. Here we focus on the pair-production of stops that decay to a top and a neutralino. Most of the heavy stop parameter space results in highly boosted tops, populating kinematic regimes inaccessible at the LHC. New strategies for boosted top-tagging are needed and a simple, detector-independent tagger can be constructed by requiring a muon inside a jet. Assuming 20% system…
Monojet searches are a powerful way to place model-independent constraints on effective operators coupling dark matter to the standard model. For operators generated by the exchange of a scalar mediator, however, couplings to light quarks are suppressed and the prospect of probing such interactions through the inclusive monojet channel at the LHC is limited. We propose dedicated searches, focusing on bottom and top quark final states, to constrain this class of operators. We show that a search in mono b-jets can significantly improve current limits. The mono-b signal arises partly from direct …
We study the discovery potential of string resonances decaying to $t\bar{t}$ final state at the LHC. We point out that top quark pair production is a promising and an advantageous channel for studying such resonances, due to their low Standard Model background and unique kinematics. We study the invariant mass distribution and angular dependence of the top pair production cross section via exchanges of string resonances. The mass ratios of these resonances and the unusual angular distribution may help identify their fundamental properties and distinguish them from other new physics. We find th…
Top-antitop pairs produced at hadron colliders are largely unpolarized, but their spins are highly correlated. The structure of these correlations varies significantly over top production phase space, allowing very detailed tests of the Standard Model. Here, we explore top quark spin correlation measurement from a general perspective, highlighting the role of azimuthal decay angles. By taking differences and sums of these angles about the top-antitop production axis, the presence of spin correlations can be seen as sinusoidal modulations resulting from the interference of different helicity ch…
The Standard Model of particle physics is assumed to be a low-energy effective theory with new physics theoretically motivated to be around TeV scale. The dissertation presents theories with new physics beyond the Standard Model at the TeV scale testable in the current High Energy Colliders. The study on leptoquarks gauge bosons in reference to TopSU(5) model in chapter 2 showed that their discovery mass range extends upto 1.5 TeV at 14 TeV LHC with luminosity of 100 $fb^{-1}$. On the other hand, in chapter 3 we studied the collider phenomenology of TeV scale mirror fermions in Left-Right Mirr…
