Top quark pair production in the exclusive processes at the LHC

Victor P Gonçalves,Daniel E Martins,Marek Tasevsky,Murilo S Rangel

doi:10.1103/physrevd.102.074014

Victor P Gonçalves, Daniel E Martins + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.102.074014

Copy DOI

Abstract

We analyze the LHC prospects for measurements of the $t\bar{t}$ pair produced exclusively in photon-photon or semi-exclusively in photon-Pomeron and Pomeron-Pomeron processes using protons tagged in forward proton detectors on both sides of the interaction point. These processes are interesting from the point of view of a possible measurement of the top quark mass and constraining models used in Beyond Standard Model physics. Focusing on the semi-leptonic channel, $t\bar{t}\rightarrow jjbl\nu_l\bar{b}$, making use of the exclusive nature of the final state, together with the use of timing information provided by forward proton detectors, relevant exclusive and inclusive backgrounds are studied in detail for different luminosity (or pile-up) scenarios and found to be important for further considerations. While good prospects are found for observing the signal, the top quark mass measurement turns out not to be competitive with measurements in inclusive channels.

Highlights

One of the more important processes for studying perturbative quantum chromodynamics is the heavy quark production in hadronic collisions
These processes are interesting from the point of view of a possible measurement of the top quark mass and constraining models used in beyond the Standard Model physics
Such a process is expected to improve the description of the measured data by perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) at high energies, and it is important background material for analyses searching for signals of beyond the Standard Model (BSM) processes

Summary

Introduction

One of the more important processes for studying perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) is the heavy quark production in hadronic collisions (for a review, see, e.g., Ref [1]). Recent experimental results for the inclusive top pair production have demonstrated that this process can be used to measure the top mass in a well-defined scheme with high accuracy [5,6,7,8,9,10].

Methods

Results

Conclusion