#StudentSeminar: Measurements of top quark physics observables using LHC data

by Marcos Miralles López

Wednesday 17 May 2023, 16:00 → 17:30 Europe/Madrid

1001-Primera-1-1-1 - Paterna. Seminario (Universe)

The top quark, its couplings, and its properties, serve as excellent probes of the SM. Due to its high mass, it is the only quark that decays before hadronisation; enabling its study through its decay products. Production of a top quark pair in association with a W boson is one of the most intriguing SM processes to date. Aside from the cross--section discrepancy between the theoretical prediction and the latest LHC measurements, the emittance of the $W$ boson from the initial state grants it some unique characteristics. These can be probed using final--state observables that target angular properties, such as the central--forward asymmetry $A_{C}^{\ell}$ based on the absolute pseudorapidity difference of the charged leptons decaying from the top quark pair. Moreover, new physics effects can be encapsulated within additional degrees of freedom in the context of an EFT extension of the SM. Distinctively, the top quark has the potential to strongly couple to new physics objects above the threshold scale $\Lambda=1$ TeV, which could be conducive to deviations of the SM predictions in some experimental observables.