Central-edge asymmetry as a probe of Higgs-top coupling in ttˉht\bar{t}h production at LHC

The Higgs-top coupling plays a central role in the hierarchy problem and the vacuum stability of the Standard Model (SM). We propose a central-edge asymmetry ($A_{CE}$) to probe the CP violating Higgs-top coupling in dileptonic channel of $t\bar{t}h(\to b\bar{b})$ production at the LHC. We demonstrate that the CP-violating Higgs-top coupling can affect the central-edge asymmetry through distorting $\Delta y_{\ell^+\ell^-}$ distribution because of the contribution of new top charge asymmetric term. Since $\Delta y_{\ell^+\ell^-}$ distribution is frame-independent and has a good discrimination even in boosted regime, we use the jet substructure technique to enhance the observability of the dileptonic channel of $t\bar{t}h$ production. We find that (1) the significance of dileptonic channel of $t\bar{t}h$ production can reach $5\sigma$ for CP phase $\xi=0,\pi/4,\pi/2$ when the luminosity ${\cal L}=795,993,1276$ fb$^{-1}$ at 14 TeV LHC. (2) the central-edge asymmetry $A_{CE}$ show a good discrimination power of CP phase of $t\bar{t}h$ interaction, which are -40.26\%, -26.60\%, -9.47\% for $\xi=0$, $\pi/4$, $\pi/2$ respectively and are hardly affected by the event selections. Besides, by performing the binned-$\chi^2$ analysis of $\Delta y_{\ell^+\ell^-}$ distribution, we find that the scalar and pseudo-scalar interactions can be distinguished at 95\% C.L. level at 14 TeV HL-LHC.Comment: minor changes, version accepted by PL

A precise determination of the top-quark pole mass

The Principle of Maximum Conformality (PMC) provides a systematic way to eliminate the renormalization scheme and renormalization scale uncertainties for high-energy processes. We have observed that by applying PMC scale-setting, one obtains comprehensive and self-consistent pQCD predictions for the top-quark pair total cross-section and the top-quark pair forward-backward asymmetry in agreement with the measurements at the Tevatron and LHC. As a step forward, in the present paper, we determine the top-quark pole mass via a detailed comparison of the top-quark pair cross-section with the measurements at the Tevatron and LHC. The results for the top-quark pole mass are $m_t=174.6^{+3.1}_{-3.2}$ GeV for the Tevatron with $\sqrt{S}=1.96$ TeV, $m_t=173.7\pm1.5$ GeV and $174.2\pm1.7$ GeV for the LHC with $\sqrt{S} = 7$ TeV and $8$ TeV, respectively. Those predictions agree with the average, $173.34\pm0.76$ GeV, obtained from various collaborations via direct measurements. The consistency of the pQCD predictions using the PMC with all of the collider measurements at different energies provides an important verification of QCD.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. Revised version to be published in Eur.Phys.J.

Pentaquark states with the QQQqqˉQQQq\bar{q} configuration in a simple model

We discuss the mass splittings for the $S$-wave triply heavy pentaquark states with the $QQQq\bar{q}$ $(Q=b,c;q=u,d,s)$ configuration which is a mirror structure of $Q\bar{Q}qqq$. The latter configuration is related with the nature of $P_c(4380)$ observed by the LHCb Collaboration. The considered pentaquark masses are roughly estimated with a simple method. One finds that such states are probably not narrow even if they do exist. This leaves room for molecule interpretation for a state around the low-lying threshold of a doubly heavy baryon and a heavy-light meson, e.g. $\Xi_{cc}D$, if it were observed. As a by product, we conjecture that upper limits for the masses of the conventional triply heavy baryons can be determined by the masses of the conventional doubly heavy baryons.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure, 10 tables; Version accepted by Eur. Phys. J.