Allbrooke, B M M, Asquith, L, Cerri, A, Chavez Barajas, C A, De Santo, A, Salvatore, F, Santoyo Castillo, I, Suruliz, K, Sutton, M R, Vivarelli, I and The ATLAS Collaboration, et al. (2015) Search for flavour-changing neutral current top quark decays t → Hq in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Journal of High Energy Physics, 061. ISSN 1029-8479

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Abstract

A search for flavour-changing neutral current decays of a top quark to an uptype quark (q = u, c) and the Standard Model Higgs boson, where the Higgs boson decays to bb¯, is presented. The analysis searches for top quark pair events in which one top quark decays to Wb, with the W boson decaying leptonically, and the other top quark decays to Hq. The search is based on pp collisions at √s=8 TeV recorded in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and uses an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1. Data are analysed in the lepton-plus-jets final state, characterised by an isolated electron or muon and at least four jets. The search exploits the high multiplicity of b-quark jets characteristic of signal events, and employs a likelihood discriminant that uses the kinematic differences between the signal and the background, which is dominated by tt¯→WbWb decays. No significant excess of events above the background expectation is found, and observed (expected) 95% CL upper limits of 0.56% (0.42%) and 0.61% (0.64%) are derived for the t → Hc and t → Hu branching ratios respectively. The combination of this search with other ATLAS searches in the H → γγ and H → WW*, ττ decay modes significantly improves the sensitivity, yielding observed (expected) 95% CL upper limits on the t → Hc and t → Hu branching ratios of 0.46% (0.25%) and 0.45% (0.29%) respectively. The corresponding combined observed (expected) upper limits on the |λtcH| and |λtuH| couplings are 0.13 (0.10) and 0.13 (0.10) respectively. These are the most restrictive direct bounds on tqH interactions measured so far.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Research Centres and Groups:	Experimental Particle Physics Research Group
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Depositing User:	Billy Wichaidit
Date Deposited:	26 Apr 2017 14:58
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2019 19:41
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/67521

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