Abstract: We study the sensitivity to physics beyond the standard model of precise top-quark pair production measurements at future lepton colliders. A global effective-field-theory approach is employed, including all ten dimension-six operators of the Warsaw basis which involve a top-quark and give rise to tree-level amplitudes that interfere with standard-model e+e-tt ones in the limit of vanishing b-quark mass. Four-fermion and CP-violating contributions are taken into account. Circular-collider-, ILC- and CLIC-like benchmark run scenarios are examined. We compare the constraining power of various observables to a set of statistically optimal ones which maximally exploit the information contained in the fully differential bW+ distribution. The enhanced sensitivity gained on the linear contributions of dimension-six operators leads to bounds that are insensitive to quadratic ones. Even with statistically optimal observables, two centre-of-mass energies are required for constraining simultaneously two- and four-fermion operators. The impact of the centre-of-mass energy lever arm is discussed, that of beam polarization as well. A realistic estimate of the precision that can be achieved in ILC- and CLIC-like operating scenarios yields individual limits on the electroweak couplings of the top quark that are one to three orders of magnitude better than constraints set with Tevatron and LHC run I data, and three to two hundred times better than the most optimistic projections made for the high-luminosity phase of the LHC. Clean global constraints can moreover be obtained at lepton colliders, robustly covering the multidimensional effective-field-theory space with minimal model dependence.

Abstract: This paper presents a combined analysis of the potential of a future electron-positron collider to constrain the Higgs, top, and electroweak sectors of the Standard Model effective field theory. The leading contributions of operators involving top quarks arise mostly at one-loop suppressed order and can be captured by the renormalization group mixing with Higgs operators. We perform global fits with an extended basis of 29 parameters, including both Higgs and top operators, to the projections for the Higgs, top, and electroweak precision measurements at the International Linear Collider (ILC). The determination of the Higgs boson couplings in the 250 GeV stage of the ILC is initially severely degraded by the additional top-quark degrees of freedom, but can be nearly completely recovered by the inclusion of precise measurements of top-quark EW couplings at the LHC. The physical Higgs couplings are relatively robust, as the top mass is larger than the energy scale of electroweak processes. The effect of the top operators on the bounds on the Wilson coefficients is much more pronounced and may limit our ability to identify the source of deviations from the Standard Model. Robust global bounds on all Wilson coefficients are only obtained when the 500 GeV stage of the ILC is included.

Abstract: Recent measurements at the Large Hadron Collider allow for a robust and precise characterisation of the electro-weak interactions of the top quark. We present the results of a global analysis at next-to-leading order precision including LHC, LEP/SLD and Tevatron data in the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory. We include a careful analysis of the impact of correlations among measurements, as well as of the uncertainties in the Effective Field Theory setup itself. We find remarkably robust global fit results, with central values in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction, and 95% probability bounds on Wilson coefficients that range from +/- 0.35 to +/- 8 TeV-2. This result represents a considerable improvement over previous studies, thanks to the addition of differential cross-section measurements in associated production processes of top quarks and neutral gauge bosons.