Quark Decay Research Articles

Measurement of the Jet Mass Distribution and Top Quark Mass in Hadronic Decays of Boosted Top Quarks in pp Collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV.

A measurement is reported of the jet mass distribution in hadronic decays of boosted top quarks produced in pp collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV. The data were collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb^{-1}. The measurement is performed in the lepton+jets channel of tt[over ¯] events, where the lepton is an electron or muon. The products of the hadronic top quark decay t→bW→bqq[over ¯]^{'} are reconstructed as a single jet with transverse momentum larger than 400GeV. The tt[over ¯] cross section as a function of the jet mass is unfolded at the particle level and used to extract a value of the top quark mass of 172.6±2.5 GeV. A novel jet reconstruction technique is used for the first time at the LHC, which improves the precision by a factor of 3 relative to an earlier measurement. This highlights the potential of measurements using boosted top quarks, where the new technique will enable future precision measurements.

Goldstone equivalence and high energy electroweak physics

The transition between the broken and unbroken phases of massive gauge theories, namely the rearrangement of longitudinal and Goldstone degrees of freedom that occurs at high energy, is not manifestly smooth in the standard formalism. The lack of smoothness concretely shows up as an anomalous growth with energy of the longitudinal polarization vectors, as they emerge in Feynman rules both for real on-shell external particles and for virtual particles from the decomposition of the gauge field propagator. This makes the characterization of Feynman amplitudes in the high-energy limit quite cumbersome, which in turn poses peculiar challenges in the study of Electroweak processes at energies much above the Electroweak scale. We develop a Lorentz-covariant formalism where polarization vectors are well-behaved and, consequently, energy power-counting is manifest at the level of individual Feynman diagrams. This allows us to prove the validity of the Effective $W$ Approximation and, more generally, the factorization of collinear emissions and to compute the corresponding splitting functions at the tree-level order. Our formalism applies at all orders in perturbation theory, for arbitrary gauge groups and generic linear gauge-fixing functionals. It can be used to simplify Standard Model loop calculations by performing the high-energy expansion directly on the Feynman diagrams. This is illustrated by computing the radiative corrections to the decay of the top quark.

Measurement of differential cross sections and charge ratios for t-channel single top quark production in proton\u2013proton collisions at sqrt{s}=13,text {Te}text {V}

A measurement is presented of differential cross sections for t-channel single top quark and antiquark production in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13,text {Te}text {V} by the CMS experiment at the LHC. From a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9,text {fb}^{-1}, events containing one muon or electron and two or three jets are analysed. The cross section is measured as a function of the top quark transverse momentum (p_{mathrm{T}} ), rapidity, and polarisation angle, the charged lepton p_{mathrm{T}} and rapidity, and the p_{mathrm{T}} of the text {W}{}{} boson from the top quark decay. In addition, the charge ratio is measured differentially as a function of the top quark, charged lepton, and text {W}{}{} boson kinematic observables. The results are found to be in agreement with standard model predictions using various next-to-leading-order event generators and sets of parton distribution functions. Additionally, the spin asymmetry, sensitive to the top quark polarisation, is determined from the differential distribution of the polarisation angle at parton level to be 0.440 pm 0.070, in agreement with the standard model prediction.

Rare decays of the top quark mediated by Z′ gauge bosons and flavor violation

The rare top quark decays mediated by a new neutral massive gauge boson that is predicted in models with extended gauge symmetries are studied. We focus on the processes [Formula: see text] induced at the one loop level, where [Formula: see text], by considering different extended models. It is found that, within a broad range of mass of the new neutral gauge boson, the models predict branching ratios for the decays in study that are competitive with respect to the corresponding branching ratios in the Standard Model (SM). In order to establish bound on our branching ratios, we consider the recent experimental bounds as [Formula: see text], depending on the model, which also impose restrictions on our calculation. Even in this case, the resulting branching ratios are of the same order of magnitude as that predicted by the SM. It should be noted that for the case of two models studied here, since no experimental bound exists to compare with, the results could be important, as they are, in the best of cases, two orders of magnitude larger than the predicted by the SM.

What Is the Top Quark Mass?

This review provides an overview of the conceptual issues regarding the interpretation of so-called direct top quark mass measurements, which are based on the kinematic reconstruction of top quark decay products at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These measurements quote the top mass parameter [Formula: see text] of Monte Carlo event generators with current uncertainties of around 0.5 GeV. The problem of finding a rigorous relation between [Formula: see text] and top mass renormalization schemes defined in field theory is unresolved to date and touches perturbative as well as nonperturbative aspects and the limitations of state-of-the-art Monte Carlo event generators. I review the status of LHC top mass measurements, illustrate how conceptual limitations enter the picture, and explain a controversy that has permeated the community in the context of the interpretation problem related to [Formula: see text]. I then summarize recent advances in acquiring first principles insights and outline what else has to be understood to fully resolve the issue. I conclude with recommendations on how to deal with the interpretation problem for the time being when making top mass–dependent theoretical predictions.

Identifying hadronically-decaying vector bosons and top quarks in ATLAS

Hadronic decays of vector bosons and top quarks are increasingly important to the ATLAS physics program, both in measurements of the Standard Model and searches for new physics. At high energies, these decays are collimated into a single overlapping region of energy deposits in the detector, referred to as a jet. However, vector bosons and top quarks are hidden under an enormous background of other processes producing jets. The ATLAS experiment has employed boosted decision trees and deep neural networks to the challenging task of identifying hadronically-decaying vector bosons and top quarks and rejecting other jet backgrounds. These discriminants are becoming increasingly complex and using more advanced machine learning techniques. The methods currently used to tag these objects are described. In order to improve the tagger performance on the signal efficiency and background rejection, new in-situ techniques are applied, thus directly evaluating the agreement between data and simulation after applying an arbitrarily complex classifier. The precision obtained by applying the in-situ techniques is presented.

Three-loop soft function for heavy-to-light quark decays

We compute the 1-jettiness soft function for the decay of a heavy quark into a light quark jet plus colorless particles at three-loop order in soft-collinear effective theory. The 1-jettiness measurement fixes the total small light-cone momentum component of the soft radiation with respect to the jet direction. This soft function is a universal ingredient to the factorization of heavy-to-light quark decays in the limit of small 1-jettiness. Our three-loop result is required for resummation at the N3LL′ level, e.g. near the endpoint in the photon energy spectrum of the B → Xsγ decay. It is also a necessary ingredient for future calculations of fully-differential heavy-to-light quark decay rates at N3LO using the N -jettiness subtraction method, e.g. for semileptonic top decays. Using our result for the soft anomalous dimension we confirm predictions on the universal infrared structure of QCD scattering amplitudes with a massive external quark at three loops.

Off-shell vs on-shell modelling of top quarks in photon associated production

We present a comparative study of various approaches for modelling of the {e}^{+}{v}_e{mu}^{-}{overline{v}}_{mu }boverline{b}gamma final state in toverline{t}gamma production at the LHC. Working at the NLO in QCD we compare the fully realistic description of the top quark decay chain with the one provided by the narrow-width-approximation. The former approach comprises all double, single and non-resonant diagrams, interferences, and off-shell effects of the top quarks. The latter incorporates only double resonant contributions and restricts the unstable top quarks to on-shell states. We confirm that for the integrated cross sections the finite top quark width effects are small and of the order of mathcal{O}left({Gamma}_t/{m}_tright) . We show, however, that they are strongly enhanced for more exclusive observables. In addition, we investigate fractions of events where the photon is radiated either in the production or in the decay stage. We find that large fraction of isolated photons comes from radiative decays of top quarks. Based on our findings, selection criteria might be developed to reduce such contributions, that constitute a background for the measurement of the anomalous couplings in the toverline{t}upgamma vertex.

Vector-like quarks with non-renormalizable interactions

We study the impact of the leading non-renormalizable terms in the effective field theory that describes general extensions of the Standard Model with vector-like quarks that can decay into Standard Model particles. Dropping the usual assumption of renormalizability has several phenomenological consequences for the production and decay of the heavy quarks and also for Higgs physics. The most dramatic effects, including those associated with a long lifetime, occur for vector-like quarks with non-standard quantum numbers.

Effects of Top-quark Decay Modeling in \(t\bar {t}\gamma \) Production at the LHC

We present a systematic comparison of different approaches for the modeling of $t\bar{t}\gamma$ final states with leptonic decays at the LHC. On the one hand, we consider a complete calculation at NLO QCD accuracy which includes all resonant and non-resonant diagrams. On the other hand, we consider predictions in the narrow-width approximation with top quark decays modeled at various accuracies. In this way we quantify the impact of the off-shell effects in $t\bar{t}\gamma$ production. We also discuss the relative importance of double-, single- and non-resonant contributions in the complete calculation. Finally we investigate the fraction of isolated photons from decays of top quarks, which represent a background for measurements of anomalous $t\gamma$ couplings.

Jets with electrons from boosted top quarks

We propose a method to identify jets consisting of all the visible remnants of a boosted top quark decaying semileptonically with an electron in the final state. An overlap of electron shower with the b quark initiated shower, and the large nontrivial energy-momentum carried by the invisible neutrino in the top quark decay are the two obstacles to achieving this aim. Our method uses the distribution of energy in different parts of the detector to identify a jet containing an energetic electron, involves use of substructure of the jet to determine the momentum associated with the electron and then completes the identification of top jet with the construction of new variables which would reflect the top quark decay kinematics. The last part involves an ansatz of the existence of a massless, invisible four-momentum roughly collimated with the electron, whose four- momentum when combined with that of the the electron and the full jet, reconstructs to the W boson and the top quark respectively. We demonstrate the efficacy of this proposal using simulated data and show that our method not only reduces the backgrounds from light flavor jets, b jets from QCD, and hadronic top jets, it can also tell apart jets rich in electrons but not due to top quark decays.

Physics Inspired Deep Neural Networks for Top Quark Reconstruction

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have been applied to the fields of computer vision and natural language processing with great success in recent years. The success of these applications has hinged on the development of specialized DNN architectures that take advantage of specific characteristics of the problem to be solved, namely convolutional neural networks for computer vision and recurrent neural networks for natural language processing. This research explores whether a neural network architecture specific to the task of identifying t → Wb decays in particle collision data yields better performance than a generic, fully-connected DNN. Although applied here to resolved top quark decays, this approach is inspired by an DNN technique for tagging boosted top quarks, which consists of defining custom neural network layers known as the combination and Lorentz layers. These layers encode knowledge of relativistic kinematics applied to combinations of particles, and the output of these specialized layers can then be fed into a fully connected neural network to learn tasks such as classification. This research compares the performance of these physics inspired networks to that of a generic, fully-connected DNN, to see if there is any advantage in terms of classification performance, size of the network, or ease of training.

Determination of Ds+ meson fragmentation functions through two different approaches

The hadronization mechanism is described by the fragmentation functions (FFs) which are universal and process-independent quantities. They can be generally determined theoretically or phenomenologically. In the phenomenological approach which is based on the data analysis, we present the FFs of ${D}_{s}^{+}$ both at leading-order (LO) and next-to-leading order (NLO) and, for the first time, at next-to-next-to-leading order in the minimal subtraction factorization scheme with five massless quarks. These functions are determined by fitting all available experimental data of inclusive single ${D}_{s}^{+}$-meson production in electron-positron annihilation, from the OPAL Collaboration at CERN LEP1. We shall also estimate the uncertainties in these FFs as well as in the corresponding observables. In the theoretical approach, we apply the perturbative FFs formalism based on the Suzuki's model and present our analytical results at LO and NLO perturbative QCD framework. For the first time, a comparison between both approaches will be presented in this work. We also apply our new FFs to generate theoretical predictions for the energy distribution of ${D}_{s}^{+}$ mesons produced through the decay of unpolarized top quarks, to be measured at the CERN LHC.

NNLO charmed-meson fragmentation functions and their uncertainties in the presence of meson mass corrections

The main aim of this paper is to present new sets of non-perturbative fragmentation functions (FFs) for D^0 and D^+ mesons at next-to-leading (NLO) and, for the first time, at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in the overline{mathrm {MS}} factorization scheme with five massless quark flavors. This new determination of FFs is based on the QCD fit to the OPAL experimental data for hadron production in the electron-positron single-inclusive annihilation (SIA). We discuss in detail the novel aspects of the methodology used in our analysis and the validity of obtained FFs by comparing with previous works in literature which have been carried out up to NLO accuracy. We will also incorporate the effect of charmed meson mass corrections into our QCD analysis and discuss the improvements upon inclusion of these effects. The uncertainties in the extracted FFs as well as in the corresponding observables are estimated using the “Hessian” approach. For a typical application, we use our new FFs to make theoretical predictions for the energy distributions of charmed mesons inclusively produced through the decay of unpolarized top quarks, to be measured at the CERN LHC. As a result of this analysis, suggestions are discussed for possible future studies on the current topic to consider any theory improvements and other available experimental observables.

Parton showers and matching uncertainties in top quark pair production with Herwig 7

We evaluate the theoretical uncertainties in next-to-leading order plus parton shower predictions for top quark pair production and decay in hadronic collisions. Our work is carried out using the Herwig 7 event generator and presents an in-depth study of variations in matching schemes with two systematically different shower algorithms, the traditional angular-ordered and alternative dipole shower. We also present all of the required extensions of the Herwig dipole shower algorithm to properly take into account quark mass effects, as well as its ability to perform top quark decays. The predictions are compared at parton level as well as to Large Hadron Collider data, including in the boosted regime. We find that the regions where predictions with a non-top-quark-specific tune differ drastically from data are plagued by large uncertainties which are consistent between our two shower and matching algorithms.

(g − 2)μ versus flavor changing neutral current induced by the light (B − L)μτ boson

We propose the local (B − L)μτ model, which minimally retains the local B − L extension for the sake of neutrino phenomenologies, and at the same time presents an invisible gauge boson Z′ with mass ∼ \U0001d4aa (10) MeV to account for the discrepancy of the muon anomalous magnetic moment. However such a scenario is challenged by flavor physics. To accommodate the correct pattern of Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, we have to introduce either a SU(2)L doublet flavon or vector-like quarks plus a singlet flavon. In either case Z′ induces flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) in the quark sector at tree-level. We find that the former scheme cannot naturally suppress the FCNC from the down-type quark sector and thus requires a large fine-tuning to avoid the stringent K → πν overline{v} bound. Whereas the latter scheme, in which FCNC merely arises in the up-type quark sector, is still free of strong constraint. In particular, it opens a new window to test our scenario by searching for flavor-changing top quark decay mode t → u/c+(invisible), and the typical branching ratio ∼ \U0001d4aa (10−4).

Top quark decay at next-to-leading order in the standard model effective field theory

We consider top quark decay in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT). We present a calculation of the total decay width and the $W$-boson helicity fractions at next-to-leading order (NLO) in SMEFT. Our result includes the complete set of contributing four-fermion operators in addition to QCD dipole operators and bottom-mass suppressed effects. We show that operators that first appear at NLO in the SMEFT can be bounded by the current data as well as future data from both a high-luminosity LHC and a potential $e^+e^-$ collider, demonstrating the importance of going beyond leading order when studying the SMEFT. We discuss technical aspects of our calculation that we believe will be useful in future higher-order studies of the SMEFT, in particular the treatment of $\gamma_5$ in loop diagrams.

Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated: $N$-subjettiness taggers take on jet images

We compare the performance of a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained on jet images with dense neural networks (DNNs) trained on nn-subjettiness variables to study the distinguishing power of these two separate techniques applied to top quark decays. We find that they perform almost identically and are highly correlated once jet mass information is included, which suggests they are accessing the same underlying information which can be intuitively understood as being contained in 4-, 5-, 6-, and 8-body kinematic phase spaces depending on the sample. This suggests both of these methods are highly useful for heavy object tagging and provides a tentative answer to the question of what the image network is actually learning.

Search for a Light Charged Higgs Boson Decaying to a W Boson and a CP-Odd Higgs Boson in Final States with eμμ or μμμ in Proton-Proton Collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV.

A search for a light charged Higgs boson (H^{+}) decaying to a W boson and a CP-odd Higgs boson (A) in final states with eμμ or μμμ is performed using data from pp collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV, recorded by the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb^{-1}. In this search, it is assumed that the H^{+} boson is produced in decays of top quarks, and the A boson decays to two oppositely charged muons. The presence of signals for H^{+} boson masses between 100 and 160GeV and A boson masses between 15 and 75GeV is investigated. No evidence for the production of the H^{+} boson is found. Upper limits at 95%confidence level are obtained on the combined branching fraction for the decay chain, t→bH^{+}→bW^{+}A→bW^{+}μ^{+}μ^{-}, of 1.9×10^{-6} to 8.6×10^{-6}, depending on the masses of the H^{+} and A bosons. These are the first limits for these decay modes of the H^{+} and A bosons.

Implication of RD(*) anomalies on semileptonic decays of Σb and Ωb baryons

The flavor changing decays of heavy bottom quarks to the corresponding lighter quarks ($u$, $c$ and $s$) in various $B$-meson decays via charged current and neutral current semileptonic transitions have emerged as promising candidates to explore the physics beyond the standard model. Experimentally the lepton flavor universality violation in $b \to (c,u)\,l\,\nu$ and $b \to s\,l^+ l^-$ transitions have been reported to a higher precision. The measurements of the lepton flavor violating ratios such as $R_{D^{(*)}}$, $R_{J/\Psi}$ and $R_{K^{(*)}}$ are observed to deviate from the standard model expectations at the level of $1.4\sigma$, $2.5\sigma$, $1.5\sigma$, $2.4\sigma$ and $2.2\sigma$ respectively. Motivated by these anomalies, we investigate the lepton flavor universality violation in $\Sigma_b \to \Sigma_c l \nu$ and $\Omega_b \to \Omega_c l \nu$ decays. We follow a model independent effective field theory formalism and study the implications of $R_{D^{(*)}}$ anomalies on $\Sigma_b \to \Sigma_c \tau \nu$ and $\Omega_b \to \Omega_c \tau \nu$ decay modes. We give predictions of various physical observables such as the ratio of branching ratios, total differential decay rate, forward-backward asymmetry, lepton side polarization fraction and convexity parameter within the standard model and within various new physics scenarios.