Quark Decay Research Articles

Test of the universality of \u03c4 and \u03bc lepton couplings in W-boson decays with the ATLAS detector

The standard model of particle physics encapsulates our best current understanding of physics at the smallest scales. A fundamental axiom of this theory is the universality of the couplings of the different generations of leptons to the electroweak gauge bosons. The measurement of the ratio of the decay rate of W bosons to τ leptons and muons, R(τ/μ), constitutes an important test of this axiom. Using 139 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, we report a measurement of this quantity from di-leptonic toverline{t} events where the top quarks decay into a W boson and a bottom quark. We can distinguish muons originating from W bosons and those originating from an intermediate τ lepton through the muon transverse impact parameter and differences in the muon transverse momentum spectra. The measured value of R(τ/μ) is 0.992 ± 0.013 [± 0.007(stat) ± 0.011(syst)] and is in agreement with the hypothesis of universal lepton couplings as postulated in the standard model. This is the only such measurement from the Large Hadron Collider, so far, and obtains twice the precision of previous measurements.

Flavor changing top decays to charm and a Higgs boson with ττ at the LHC

We investigate the prospects of discovering the top quark decay into a charm quark and a Higgs boson ($t \to c h^0$) in top quark pair production at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A general two Higgs doublet model is adopted to study flavor changing neutral Higgs (FCNH) interactions. We perform a parton level analysis as well as Monte Carlo simulations using \textsc{Pythia}~8 and \textsc{Delphes} to study the flavor changing top quark decay $t \to c h^0$, followed by the Higgs decaying into $\tau^+ \tau^-$, with the other top quark decaying to a bottom quark ($b$) and two light jets ($t\to bW\to bjj$). To reduce the physics background to the Higgs signal, only the leptonic decays of tau leptons are used, $\tau^+\tau^- \to e^\pm\mu^\mp +\slashed{E}_T$, where $\slashed{E}_T$ represents the missing transverse energy from the neutrinos. In order to reconstruct the Higgs boson and top quark masses as well as to effectively remove the physics background, the collinear approximation for the highly boosted tau decays is employed. Our analysis suggests that a high energy LHC at $\sqrt{s} = 27$ TeV will be able to discover this FCNH signal with an integrated luminosity $\mathcal{L} = 3$ ab$^{-1}$ for a branching fraction ${\cal B}(t \to ch^0) \agt 1.4 \times 10^{-4}$ that corresponds to a FCNH coupling $|\lambda_{tch}| \agt 0.023$. This FCNH coupling is significantly below the current ATLAS combined upper limit of $|\lambda_{tch}| = 0.064$.

Three-loop corrections to the muon and heavy quark decay rates

Recently, $O(\alpha^3)$ corrections to the muon decay rate and $O(\alpha_s^3)$ to heavy quark decays have been determined by Fael, Sch\"onwald, and Steinhauser. This is the first such perturbative improvement of these important quantities in more than two decades. We reveal and explain a symmetry pattern in these new corrections, and confirm the most technically difficult parts of their evaluation.

Event generation and statistical sampling for physics with deep generative models and a density information buffer

Simulating nature and in particular processes in particle physics require expensive computations and sometimes would take much longer than scientists can afford. Here, we explore ways to a solution for this problem by investigating recent advances in generative modeling and present a study for the generation of events from a physical process with deep generative models. The simulation of physical processes requires not only the production of physical events, but to also ensure that these events occur with the correct frequencies. We investigate the feasibility of learning the event generation and the frequency of occurrence with several generative machine learning models to produce events like Monte Carlo generators. We study three processes: a simple two-body decay, the processes e+e− → Z → l+l− and ppto tbar{t} including the decay of the top quarks and a simulation of the detector response. By buffering density information of encoded Monte Carlo events given the encoder of a Variational Autoencoder we are able to construct a prior for the sampling of new events from the decoder that yields distributions that are in very good agreement with real Monte Carlo events and are generated several orders of magnitude faster. Applications of this work include generic density estimation and sampling, targeted event generation via a principal component analysis of encoded ground truth data, anomaly detection and more efficient importance sampling, e.g., for the phase space integration of matrix elements in quantum field theories.

Investigation of charged Higgs boson in the bottom and top quark decay channel at the FCC-hh

After the recent discovery of a neutral Higgs boson with a mass about 125 GeV, we assess the extend of discovery potential of future circular hadron collider (FCC-hh) for a charged Higgs boson in the bottom and top quark decay channel. The charged Higgs boson can be produced through the pp→h−t+X process with a subsequent decay h−→bt¯ channel. This decay channel is particularly important for studying the charged Higgs boson heavier than the top quark. We consider an extension of the standard model Higgs sector, namely two Higgs doublet model (2HDM), and perform a dedicated signal significance analysis to test this channel for the FCC-hh running at the center of mass energy of 100 TeV and the integrated luminosity of 1 ab−1 (initial), 3 ab−1 (comparison with HL-LHC) and 30 ab−1 (ultimate). We find that an important part of the parameter spaces of two Higgs doublet model is examinable at the FCC-hh.

Evidence for top quark production in nucleus-nucleus collisions

Droplets of quark-gluon plasma (QGP), an exotic state of strongly interacting quantum chromodynamics (QCD) matter, are routinely produced in heavy nuclei high-energy collisions. Although the experimental signatures marked a paradigm shift away from expectations of a weakly coupled QGP, a challenge remains as to how the locally deconfined state with a lifetime of a few fm can be resolved. The only colored particle that decays mostly within the QGP is the top quark. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, that top quark decay products are identified, irrespective of whether interacting with the medium (bottom quarks) or not (leptonically decaying W bosons). Using 1.7±0.1 nb−1 of lead-lead (A = 208) collision data recorded by the CMS experiment at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV, we report evidence of top quark pair (tt¯) production. Dilepton final states are selected, and the cross section (σtt¯) is measured from a likelihood fit to a multivariate discriminator using lepton kinematic variables. The σtt¯ measurement is additionally performed considering the jets originating from the hadronization of bottom quarks, which improve the sensitivity to the tt¯ signal process. After background subtraction and analysis corrections, the measured σtt¯ is 2.56 ± 0.82(tot) and 2.02 ± 0.69(tot)μb in the two cases, respectively, consistent with predictions from perturbative QCD.

Tagging boosted hadronic objects with dynamical grooming

We evaluate the phenomenological applicability of the dynamical grooming technique, introduced in [1], to boosted W and top tagging at LHC conditions. An extension of our method intended for multi-prong decays with an internal mass scale, such as the top quark decay, is presented. First, we tackle the reconstruction of the mass distribution of W and top jets quantifying the smearing due to pileup. When compared to state-of-the-art grooming algorithms like SoftDrop and its recursive version, dynamical grooming shows an enhanced resilience to background fluctuations. In addition, we asses the discriminating power of dynamical grooming to distinguish W (top) jets from QCD ones by performing a two-step analysis: introduce a cut on the groomed mass around the W (top) mass peak followed by a restriction on the N-subjettinnes ratio $\tau_{21}$ ($\tau_{32}$). For W jets, the out-of-the-box version of dynamical grooming, free of ad-hoc parameters, results into a comparable performance to SoftDrop. Regarding the top tagger efficiency, 3-prong dynamical grooming, in spite of its simplicity, presents better performance than SoftDrop and similar results to Recursive SoftDrop.

Contribution of the Darwin operator to non-leptonic decays of heavy quarks

We compute the Darwin operator contribution ( 1/{m}_b^3 correction) to the width of the inclusive non-leptonic decay of a B meson (B+, Bd or Bs), stemming from the quark flavour-changing transition b → {q}_1{overline{q}}_2{q}_3 , where q1, q2 = u, c and q3 = d, s. The key ideas of the computation are the local expansion of the quark propagator in the external gluon field including terms with a covariant derivative of the gluon field strength tensor and the standard technique of the Heavy Quark Expansion (HQE). We confirm the previously known expressions of the 1/{m}_b^3 contributions to the semi-leptonic decay b → {q}_1mathrm{ell}{overline{nu}}_{mathrm{ell}} , with ℓ = e, μ, τ and of the 1/{m}_b^2 contributions to the non-leptonic modes. We find that this new term can give a sizeable correction of about −4 % to the non-leptonic decay width of a B meson. For Bd and Bs mesons this turns out to be the dominant correction to the free b-quark decay, while for the B+ meson the Darwin term gives the second most important correction — roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of the phase space enhanced Pauli interference contribution. Due to the tiny experimental uncertainties in lifetime measurements the incorporation of the Darwin term contribution is crucial for precision tests of the Standard Model.

Identification of Additional Jets in the $${\rm{t}}{\rm\bar{t}b}{\rm\bar{b}}$$ Events by Using Deep Neural Network

In the top quark pair production in association with the Higgs boson decaying to a b quark pair t-tbar H (b-bbar), the final state has an irreducible nonresonant background from the production of a top quark pair in association with a b quark pair t-tbar b-bbar. Therefore, understanding of the t-tbar b-bbar process precisely in particular differential cross-section as functions of the properties of the additional b jets not from the top quark decay is essential for improving the sensitivity of a search for the t-tbar H b-bbar process. The two additional b jets can be identified by using various approaches. In this paper, the performances are compared quantitatively in the lepton+jets decay channel in terms of the matching efficiency of assigning two additional b jets as a figure of merit. This study provides valuable information towards the precise measurement of differential cross-sections as a function of properties of the additional b jets in the t-tbar b-bbar events. We showed that a matching efficiency of around 40% could be achieved using a deep neural network method. In the events with at least 4 b jets, this performance is 8% better than that achieved using minimum Delta R(b,bbar) method. This is consistent with the boosted decision tree method within its statistical uncertainty.

Application of the Subsidiary Fields Method to the Modeling of $$\boldsymbol{tW+t}\bar{\boldsymbol{t}}$$ Processes with the Anomalous $$\boldsymbol{Wtb}$$ Interactions

Modeling of the pair and single top quark production are discussed in the context of searches for the anomalous $$Wtb$$ couplings. For the simulation of the anomalous $$Wtb$$ couplings in the top quark production and/or decay, the Subsidiary Fields method allows to generate a minimal number of event samples to cover all possible values of the couplings. In the paper the Subsidiary Fields method is applied to simulate the full $$t\bar{t}+tW$$ process with $$tWb$$ final state including the subsequent top quark and $$W$$ boson decays. Correctness of the differential cross sections for arbitrary values of the $$Wtb$$ couplings is demonstrated for the case of the simultaneous presence of the left- and right-handed vector operators in the Wtb vertex.

Theoretical study of the Ω(2012) state in the Ωc0→π+Ω(2012)−→π+(K¯Ξ)− and π+(K¯Ξπ)− decays

We report on a theoretical study of the newly observed $\Omega(2012)$ resonance in the nonleptonic weak decays of $\Omega_c^0 \to \pi^+ \bar{K}\Xi^*(1530) (\eta \Omega) \to \pi^+ (\bar{K}\Xi)^-$ and $\pi^+ (\bar{K}\Xi\pi)^-$ via final-state interactions of the $\bar{K}\Xi^*(1530)$ and $\eta \Omega$ pairs. The weak interaction part is assumed to be dominated by the charm quark decay process: $c(ss) \to (s + u + \bar{d})(ss)$, while the hadronization part takes place between the $sss$ cluster from the weak decay and a quark-antiquark pair with the quantum numbers $J^{PC} = 0^{++}$ of the vacuum, produces a pair of $\bar{K}\Xi^*(1530)$ and $\eta \Omega$. Accordingly, the final $\bar{K}\Xi^*(1530)$ and $\eta \Omega$ states are in pure isospin $I= 0$ combinations, and the $\Omega_c^0 \to \pi^+ \bar{K}\Xi^*(1530)(\eta \Omega) \to \pi^+ (\bar{K}\Xi)^-$ decay is an ideal process to study the $\Omega(2012)$ resonance. With the final-state interaction described in the chiral unitary approach, up to an arbitrary normalization, the invariant mass distributions of the final state are calculated, assuming that the $\Omega(2012)$ resonance with spin-parity $J^P = 3/2^-$ is a dynamically generated state from the coupled channels interactions of the $\bar{K}\Xi^*(1530)$ and $\eta \Omega$ in $s$-wave and $\bar{K}\Xi$ in $d$-wave. We also calculate the ratio, $R^{\bar{K}\Xi\pi}_{\bar{K}\Xi} = {\rm Br}[\Omega_c^0 \to \pi^+ \Omega(2012)^- \to \pi^+ (\bar{K}\Xi \pi)^-] / {\rm Br}[\Omega_c^0 \to \pi^+ \Omega(2012)^- \to \pi^+ (\bar{K}\Xi)^-$]. The proposed mechanism can provide valuable information on the nature of the $\Omega(2012)$ and can in principle be tested by future experiments.

First branching fraction measurement of the suppressed decay Ξc0→π−Λc+

The $\Xi_c^0$ baryon is unstable and usually decays into charmless final states by the $c \to s u\overline{d}$ transition. It can, however, also disintegrate into a $\pi^-$ meson and a $\Lambda_c^+$ baryon via $s$ quark decay or via $cs\to d c$ weak scattering. The interplay between the latter two processes governs the size of the branching fraction ${\cal{B}}$$(\Xi_c^0\to \pi^-\Lambda_c^+)$, first measured here to be $(0.55\pm 0.02 \pm 0.18)$%, where the first uncertainty is statistical and second systematic. This result is compatible with the larger of the theoretical predictions that connect models of hyperon decays using partially conserved axial currents and SU(3) symmetry with those involving the heavy-quark expansion and heavy-quark symmetry. In addition, the branching fraction of the normalization channel, ${\cal{B}}(\Xi_c^+\to p K^- \pi^+) = (1.135 \pm 0.002 \pm 0.387)$% is measured.

Search for a light charged Higgs boson in the H±→cs channel in proton-proton collisions at s=13 TeV

A search is conducted for a low-mass charged Higgs boson produced in a top quark decay and subsequently decaying into a charm and a strange quark. The data sample was recorded in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV by the CMS experiment at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. The search is performed in the process of top quark pair production, where one top quark decays to a bottom quark and a charged Higgs boson, and the other to a bottom quark and a W boson. With the W boson decaying to a charged lepton (electron or muon) and a neutrino, the final state comprises an isolated lepton, missing transverse momentum, and at least four jets, of which two are tagged as b jets. To enhance the search sensitivity, one of the jets originating from the charged Higgs boson is required to satisfy a charm tagging selection. No significant excess beyond standard model predictions is found in the dijet invariant mass distribution. An upper limit in the range 1.68-0.25% is set on the branching fraction of the top quark decay to the charged Higgs boson and bottom quark for a charged Higgs boson mass between 80 and 160 GeV.

Performance of the ATLAS muon triggers in Run 2

The performance of the ATLAS muon trigger system is evaluated with proton-proton (pp) and heavy-ion (HI) collision data collected in Run 2 during 2015–2018 at the Large Hadron Collider. It is primarily evaluated using events containing a pair of muons from the decay of Z bosons to cover the intermediate momentum range between 26 GeV and 100 GeV. Overall, the efficiency of the single-muon triggers is about 68% in the barrel region and 85% in the endcap region. The pT range for efficiency determination is extended by using muons from decays of Jψ mesons, W bosons, and top quarks. The performance in HI collision data is measured and shows good agreement with the results obtained in pp collisions. The muon trigger shows uniform and stable performance in good agreement with the prediction of a detailed simulation. Dedicated multi-muon triggers with kinematic selections provide the backbone to beauty, quarkonia, and low-mass physics studies. The design, evolution and performance of these triggers are discussed in detail.

Resummation of non-global logarithms in cross sections with massive particles

A factorization formalism for jet processes involving massive colored particles such as the top quark is developed, extending earlier results for the massless case. The factorization of soft emissions from the underlying hard process is implemented in an effective field theory framework, which forms the basis for the resummation of large logarithms. The renormalization group evolution giving rise to non-global logarithms is implemented into a parton shower code in the large-Nc limit. After a comparison of the massive and massless radiation patterns, the cross section for toverline{t} production with a veto on additional central jet activity is computed, taking into account radiation both from the production and the decay of the top quarks. The resummation of the leading logarithms leads to an improved description of ATLAS measurements at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV.

Probing anomalous tqh couplings via single top production in associated with the Higgs boson at the HE-LHC and FCC-hh

We investigate the prospects for discovering the Flavour Changing Neutral Current (FCNC) tqh couplings via the process pprightarrow th at the proposed High Energy Large Hadron Collider (HE-LHC) and Future Circular Collider in hadron-hadron mode (FCC-hh) including the realistic detector effects. The relevant SM backgrounds are considered in the cut based analysis to obtain the limits on the the branching ratios of trightarrow qh~(q=u,c), followed by the leptonic decay channel of the top quark and diphoton decay channel of the Higgs boson. The upper limits on the FCNC branching ratios at 95% confidence level (CL) and the 5sigma discovery reach for the different integrated luminosities are obtained. It is shown that at the 27 TeV HE-LHC with an integrated luminosity of 15 ab^{-1} and at the 100 TeV FCC-hh with an integrated luminosity of 30 ab^{-1}, the BR(trightarrow uh) (BR(trightarrow ch)) can be probed, respectively, to 4.4~(6.4)times 10^{-5} and 1.3~(1.6) times 10^{-5} at the 95% CL.

Cornering Spontaneous CP Violation with Charged-Higgs-Boson Searches

Decades of precision measurements have firmly established the Kobayashi-Maskawa phase as the dominant source of the charge-parity (CP) violation observed in weak quark decays. However, it is still unclear whether CP violation is explicitly encoded in complex Yukawa matrices or instead stems from spontaneous symmetry breaking with underlying CP-conserving Yukawa and Higgs sectors. Here we study the latter possibility for the case of a generic two-Higgs-doublet model. We find that theoretical constraints limit the ratio t_{β} of the vacuum expectation values (vevs) to the range 0.22≤t_{β}≤4.5 and imply the upper bounds M_{H^{±}}≤435 GeV, M_{H_{2}^{0}}≤485 GeV and M_{H_{3}^{0}}≤545 GeV for the charged and extra neutral Higgs masses. We derive lower bounds on charged-Higgs couplings to bottom quarks which provide a strong motivation to study the nonstandard production and decay signatures pp→qbH^{±}(→q^{'}b) with all flavors q,q^{'}=u, c, t in the search for the charged Higgs boson. We further present a few benchmark scenarios with interesting discovery potential in collider analyses.

Composite dark matter phenomenology in the presence of lighter degrees of freedom

Scalar singlet dark matter in anomaly-free composite Higgs models is accompanied by exotic particles to which the dark matter annihilates. The latter can therefore freeze out even in the absence of couplings to the Standard Model. In this regime, both current and future direct detection constraints can be avoided. Moreover, due to the different decay modes of the extra particles, the dark matter candidate can even escape indirect detection constraints. Assessing this issue requires dedicated simulations of the gamma ray spectrum, that we provide in the present article in the context of SO(7)/SO(6). For the parameter space region that evades constraints from dark matter experiments, we develop new analyses to be performed at a future 100 TeV collider based on the search of the new particles produced in the decay of heavy vector-like quarks.

Signals with six bottom quarks for charged and neutral Higgs bosons

In extensions of two Higgs doublet models with vectorlike quarks, the decays of vectorlike quarks may easily be dominated by cascade decays through charged or neutral Higgs bosons leading to signatures with 6 top or bottom quarks. Since top quark decays also contain bottom quarks, a common signature for many possible decay chains is 6 bottom quarks in the final state. We present a search strategy focusing on this final state and find the mass ranges of vectorlike quarks and Higgs bosons that can be explored at the Large Hadron Collider. Among other results, the sensitivity to the charged and neutral Higgs bosons, extending to about 2 TeV, stands out when compared to models without vectorlike matter.

Λc+ fragmentation functions from pQCD approach and the Suzuki model

Through data analysis, we present new sets of nonperturbative fragmentation functions (FFs) for $\Lambda_c^+$ baryon both at leading and next-to-leading order (NLO) and, for the first time, at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in the minimal subtraction factorization scheme with five massless quarks. The FFs are determined by fitting all available data of inclusive single $\Lambda_c^+$ baryon production in $e^+e^-$ annihilation taken by the OPAL Collaboration at CERN LEP1 and Belle Collaboration at KEKB. We also estimate the uncertainties in the $\Lambda_c^+$ FFs as well as in the corresponding observables. In a completely different approach based on the Suzuki model, we will theoretically calculate the $\Lambda_c^+$ FF from charm quark and present our result at leading order perturbative QCD framework. A comparison confirms a good consistency between both approaches. We will also apply the $\Lambda_c^+$ FFs to make theoretical predictions for the energy distribution of $\Lambda_c^+$ produced through the top quark decay, to be measured at the CERN LHC.