Abstract
We evaluate the potential of the CERN LHC collider to observe rare decays of the top quark in channels involving R-parity violating ( ) interactions. We stress the importance of calculating top quark production and decay simultaneously as a true 2→4 process. The process of t pair production followed by decay of one of the top quarks is analyzed with fast detector simulation. We show that intermediate supersymmetric particles can be observed as resonances even if they are heavier than the top quark due to the significant off-shell top quark mass effects. The approach where the top quark is produced on-mass-shell and then decays into 2- or 3-body final state would in general lead to incorrect kinematical distributions and rates. The rates of the 2→4 process with top quark production and 3-body decay depend on the total width of the heavy intermediate sfermion which could, therefore, be measured indirectly. We find that the LHC collider offers a unique potential to study rare top quark decays in the framework of supersymmetry with broken R-parity for branching fractions of top decays as low as 10−6.
Highlights
Processes involving the top quark, the heaviest known fermion with a mass close to the scale of the electroweak symmetry breaking, offer a unique possibility to search for physics beyond the Standard Model(SM)
With ttproduction cross section of the order of 800 pb [1], ∼ 108 top quarks will be produced per year, assuming an integrated luminosity of 100 f b−1. These high statistics will allow for precision measurements of top quark physics and in particular, for high sensitivity to rare top quark decays in a R-parity violating (R/p) scenario
We have studied the sensitivity of the CERN LHC collider to rare R/p top quark decay
Summary
Processes involving the top quark, the heaviest known fermion with a mass close to the scale of the electroweak symmetry breaking, offer a unique possibility to search for physics beyond the Standard Model(SM). The MSSM possesses an additional discrete symmetry, called R-parity (Rp ), which conserves lepton and baryon number: Rp = (−1)3B+L+2S,. With ttproduction cross section of the order of 800 pb [1], ∼ 108 top quarks will be produced per year, assuming an integrated luminosity of 100 f b−1. These high statistics will allow for precision measurements of top quark physics and in particular, for high sensitivity to rare top quark decays in a R/p scenario.
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