Ultraboosted ZtZt and γt\gamma t production at the HL-LHC and FCC-hh

Searches for anomalous $Zt$ and $\gamma t$ production provide an excellent probe of flavour-changing top interactions when the energies considered are very large. In this note we estimate the sensitivity to these interactions at the high luminosity phase of the LHC and a future 100 TeV $pp$ collider (FCC-hh). For the LHC, the expected limits on $t \to uZ / u\gamma$ branching ratios from $Zt$ and $\gamma t$ production will reach the $10^{-5}$ level, one order of magnitude better than the existing projections for $t \to uZ$ from $t \bar t$ production. For the FCC-hh, the limits on $t \to uZ / u\gamma$ could reach an impressive sensitivity at the $10^{-6}$ level, with limits on $t \to cZ / c\gamma$ at the $10^{-5}$ level.Comment: LaTeX 11 pages. Plots fixed, journal versio

Profile of multiboson signals

We investigate the visibility of signals characterised by wide bumps over a smoothly falling background that cannot be accurately predicted by Monte Carlo calculations. Examples of such are the wide bumps that triboson and quadriboson resonance cascade decays would yield in diboson resonance searches in fully hadronic final states. We find that the sensitivity to triboson bumps is rather small: signals of a moderate size could be present in current data and yet remain unnoticed. For quadriboson cascade decays the signals can hardly be distinguished from the background in the current searches.Comment: LaTeX 17 pages. v2: fixed typos and comments added; journal versio

Portrait of a colour octet

New colour octets stand out among the new physics proposals to explain the anomalous forward-backward asymmetry measured in $t \bar t$ production by the CDF experiment at the Tevatron. We perform a fit to $t \bar t$ observables at the Tevatron and the LHC, including total cross sections, various asymmetries and the top polarisation and spin correlations, to find the most likely parameters of a light colour octet to be consistent with data. In particular, an octet coupling only to right-handed quarks gives a good fit to all measurements. The implications from the general fit are drawn in terms of predictions for top polarisation observables whose measurements are yet not very precise, and observables which simply have not been measured.Comment: LATeX 17 pages. Added a fit for a heavy octet. Final version to appear in JHE

Zt, gamma t and t production at hadron colliders via strong flavour-changing neutral couplings

We consider gq -> Zt, gq -> gamma t and gq -> t production (q=u,c) mediated by strong flavour-changing neutral interactions within an effective operator framework. We provide total cross sections for Tevatron and LHC, showing explicitly that the six processes can be described in full generality in terms of only two parameters (anomalous couplings) for q=u plus two for q=c. In our work we take into account and study in detail the effects of top quark decay. For gamma t, the inclusion of the top quark decay in the matrix element reveals an striking result: the largest contribution to the final state, e.g. gamma l nu b, with l = e, mu, tau, does not result from gq -> gamma t -> gamma l nu b but from on-shell gq -> t production with t -> gamma l nu b, being the photon radiated off the top decay products. This contribution, missed in previous literature, increases the signal cross sections by factors ranging between 3 and 6.5.Comment: LaTeX 19 pages, 23 PS figures. Typos corrected in text and equations. Final version to appear in NPB

Pair production of heavy Q=2/3 singlets at LHC

We examine the LHC discovery potential for new Q=2/3 quark singlets T in the process gg,qq -> T Tbar -> W+ b W- bbar, with one W boson decaying hadronically and the other one leptonically. A particle-level simulation of this signal and its main backgrounds is performed, showing that heavy quarks with masses of 500 GeV or lighter can be discovered at the 5 sigma level after a few months of running, when an integrated luminosity of 3 fb^-1 is collected. With a luminosity of 100 fb^-1, this process can signal the presence of heavy quarks with masses up to approximately 1 TeV. Finally, we discuss the complementarity among T Tbar, Tj production and indirect constraints from precise electroweak data in order to discover a new quark or set bounds on its mass.Comment: LaTeX 18 pages, 15 figures. Comments and a reference added. To be published in PL

New signals in pair production of heavy Q=2/3 singlets at LHC

New quark singlets T can be produced in pairs at LHC through standard QCD interactions, with a large cross section for masses of several hundreds of GeV. Their charged current decays T Tbar T -> W+ b W- bbar, with semileptonic decay of the W pair, give a final state l nu bb jj$, as in top pair production. The mixed decay modes T Tbar -> W+ b H tbar, H t W- bbar -> W+ b W- bbar H, T Tbar -> W+ b Z tbar, Z t W- bbar -> W+ b W- bbar Z, with H,Z -> jj, yield two more jets, l nu bb jjjj, or the same state in the latter case for Z -> nu nubar. We extend previous work examining in detail the extra H and Z contributions and stressing one of the salient features of the T Tbar -> W+ b W- bbar signal: the presence of a very energetic charged lepton. We finally compare with the discovery potential in l nu bbbb jj final states, with four b tags.Comment: LaTeX, 10 pages, 11 PS figures, uses PoS.cls. Contribution to the International Workshop on Top Quark Physics, January 12-15, 2006, Coimbra, Portugal. To appear in the proceeding