Top-quark decay into Higgs boson and a light quark at next-to-leading order in QCD

Neutral flavor-changing transitions are hugely suppressed in the Standard Model and therefore they are very sensitive to new physics. We consider the decay rate of t->u_i h where u_i=u,c using an effective field theory approach. We perform the calculation at NLO in QCD including the relevant dimension-six operators. We find that at NLO the contribution from the flavor-changing chromomagnetic operator is as important as the standard QCD correction to the flavor-changing Yukawa coupling. In addition to improving the accuracy of the theoretical predictions, the NLO calculation provides information on the operator mixing under the renormalization group.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Resurrecting the Dead Cone

The dead cone is a well-known effect in gauge theories, where radiation from a charged particle of mass m and energy E is suppressed within an angular size of m/E. This effect is universal as it does not depend on the spin of the particle nor on the nature of the gauge interaction. It is challenging to directly measure the dead cone at colliders, however, since the region of suppressed radiation either is too small to be resolved or is filled by the decay products of the massive particle. In this paper, we propose to use jet substructure techniques to expose the dead cone effect in the strong-force radiation pattern around boosted top quarks at the Large Hadron Collider. Our study shows that with 300/fb of 13-14 TeV collision data, ATLAS and CMS could obtain the first direct evidence of the dead cone effect and test its basic features.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures; v2: references added; v3: approximate version to appear in PR

Inclusive production of a Higgs or Z boson in association with heavy quarks

We calculate the cross section for the production of a Z boson in association with heavy quarks. We suggest that this cross section can be measured using an inclusive heavy-quark tagging technique. This could be used as a feasibility study for the search for a Higgs boson produced in association with bottom quarks. We argue that the best formalism for calculating that cross section is based on the leading-order process b b -> h, and that it is valid for all Higgs masses of interest at both the Fermilab Tevatron and the CERN Large Hadron Collider.Comment: 14 page

Constraining the Higgs self couplings at e+e−e^+e^- colliders

We study the sensitivity to the shape of the Higgs potential of single, double, and triple Higgs production at future $e^+e^-$ colliders. Physics beyond the Standard Model is parameterised through the inclusion of higher-dimensional operators $(\Phi^\dagger \Phi- v^2/2)^n/\Lambda^{(2n-4)}$ with $n=3,4$, which allows a consistent treatment of independent deviations of the cubic and quartic self couplings beyond the tree level. We calculate the effects induced by a modified potential up to one loop in single and double Higgs production and at the tree level in triple Higgs production, for both $Z$ boson associated and $W$ boson fusion production mechanisms. We consider two different scenarios. First, the dimension six operator provides the dominant contribution (as expected, for instance, in a linear effective-field-theory(EFT)); we find in this case that the corresponding Wilson coefficient can be determined at $\mathcal{O}(10\%)$ accuracy by just combining accurate measurements of single Higgs cross sections at $\sqrt{\hat s}=$240-250 GeV and double Higgs production in $W$ boson fusion at higher energies. Second, both operators of dimension six and eight can give effects of similar order, i.e., independent quartic self coupling deviations are present. Constraints on Wilson coefficients can be best tested by combining measurements from single, double and triple Higgs production. Given that the sensitivity of single Higgs production to the dimension eight operator is presently unknown, we consider double and triple Higgs production and show that combining their information colliders at higher energies will provide first coarse constraints on the corresponding Wilson coefficient.Comment: minor changes, version accepted for publication in JHE

Higgs production in association with a top-antitop pair in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory at NLO in QCD

We present the results of the computation of the next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production cross section of a Higgs boson in association with a top-antitop pair at the LHC, including the three relevant dimension-six operators ($O_{t \varphi }, O_{\varphi G}, O_{tG}$) of the standard model effective field theory. These operators also contribute to the production of Higgs bosons in loop-induced processes at the LHC, such as inclusive Higgs, $Hj$ and $HH$ production, and modify the Higgs decay branching ratios for which we also provide predictions. We perform a detailed study of the cross sections and their uncertainties at the total as well as differential level and of the structure of the effective field theory at NLO including renormalisation group effects. Finally, we show how the combination of information coming from measurements of these production processes will allow to constrain the three operators at the current and future LHC runs. Our results lead to a significant improvement of the accuracy and precision of the deviations expected from higher-dimensional operators in the SM in both the top-quark and the Higgs-boson sectors and provide a necessary ingredient for performing a global EFT fit to the LHC data at NLO accuracy.Comment: typos in figures 7 & 12 correcte

Monotops at the LHC

We explore scenarios where top quarks may be produced singly in association with missing energy, a very distinctive signature, which in analogy with monojets, we dub monotops. We find that monotops can be produced in a variety of modes, typically characterized by baryon number violating or flavor changing neutral interactions. We build a simplified model that encompasses all the possible (tree-level) production mechanisms and study the LHC sensitiveness to a few representative scenarios by considering fully hadronic top decays. We find that constraints on such exotic models can already be set with one inverse femtobarn of integrated luminosity collected at seven TeV.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; version accepted by PR

Associated production of a top-quark pair with vector bosons at NLO in QCD: impact on ttˉHt \bar{t} H searches at the LHC

We study the production of a top-quark pair in association with one and two vector bosons, $t \bar t V$ and $t \bar t VV$ with $V=\gamma, Z, W^\pm$, at the LHC. We provide predictions at next-to-leading order in QCD for total cross sections and top-quark charge asymmetries as well as for differential distributions. A thorough discussion of the residual theoretical uncertainties related to missing higher orders and to parton distribution functions is presented. As an application, we calculate the total cross sections for this class of processes (together with $t \bar t H$ and $t \bar t t \bar t$ production) at hadron colliders for energies up to 100 TeV. In addition, by matching the NLO calculation to a parton shower, we determine the contribution of $t \bar t V$ and $t \bar t VV$ to final state signatures (two-photon and two-same-sign-, three- and four-lepton) relevant for $t \bar t H$ analyses at the Run II of the LHC.Comment: 44 pages, 23 figures. Version published on JHEP, typos in Table 5 have been correcte

Tracking down hyper-boosted top quarks

The identification of hadronically decaying heavy states, such as vector bosons, the Higgs, or the top quark, produced with large transverse boosts has been and will continue to be a central focus of the jet physics program at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). At a future hadron collider working at an order-of-magnitude larger energy than the LHC, these heavy states would be easily produced with transverse boosts of several TeV. At these energies, their decay products will be separated by angular scales comparable to individual calorimeter cells, making the current jet substructure identification techniques for hadronic decay modes not directly employable. In addition, at the high energy and luminosity projected at a future hadron collider, there will be numerous sources for contamination including initial- and final-state radiation, underlying event, or pile-up which must be mitigated. We propose a simple strategy to tag such "hyper-boosted" objects that defines jets with radii that scale inversely proportional to their transverse boost and combines the standard calorimetric information with charged track-based observables. By means of a fast detector simulation, we apply it to top quark identification and demonstrate that our method efficiently discriminates hadronically decaying top quarks from light QCD jets up to transverse boosts of 20 TeV. Our results open the way to tagging heavy objects with energies in the multi-TeV range at present and future hadron colliders.Comment: 19 pages + appendices, 17 figures; v2: added references, updated cross section tabl

Choosing the Factorization Scale in Perturbative QCD

We define the collinear factorization scheme, which absorbs only the collinear physics into the parton distribution functions. In order to isolate the collinear physics, we introduce a procedure to combine real and virtual corrections, canceling infrared singularities prior to integration. In the collinear scheme, the factorization scale $\mu$ has a simple physical interpretation as a collinear cutoff. We present a method for choosing the factorization scale and apply it to the Drell-Yan process; we find $\mu \approx Q/2$, where $Q$ is the vector-boson invariant mass. We show that, for a wide variety of collision energies and $Q$, the radiative corrections are small in the collinear scheme for this choice of factorization scale.Comment: 25 pages, 18 figure