Botella, F. J., Branco, G. C., Nebot, M., & Rebelo, M. N. (2016). Flavour-changing Higgs couplings in a class of two Higgs doublet models. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(3), 161–17pp.
Abstract: We analyse various flavour-changing processes like t -> hu, hc, h -> t e, tau μas well as hadronic decays h -> bs, bd, in the framework of a class of two Higgs doublet models where there are flavour-changing neutral scalar currents at tree level. These models have the remarkable feature of having these flavour-violating couplings entirely determined by the CKM and PMNS matrices as well as tan beta. The flavour structure of these scalar currents results from a symmetry of the Lagrangian and therefore it is natural and stable under the renormalisation group. We show that in some of the models the rates of the above flavour-changing processes can reach the discovery level at the LHC at 13 TeV even taking into account the stringent bounds on low energy processes, in particular μ-> e gamma.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for flavour-changing neutral current top-quark decays to q Z in pp collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at root s=8 TeV. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(1), 12–24pp.
Abstract: A search for the flavour-changing neutral-current decay is presented. Data collected by the ATLAS detector during 2012 from proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1), are analysed. Top-quark pair-production events with one top quark decaying through the t -> qZ (q = u,c) channel and the other through the dominant Standard Model mode t -> bW are considered as signal. Only the decays of the Z boson to charged leptons and leptonic W boson decays are used. No evidence for a signal is found and an observed (expected) upper limit on the t -> qZ branching ratio of 7 x 10(-4) (8 x 10(-4)) is set at the 95 % confidence level.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Measurements of fiducial cross-sections for t(t)over-bar production with one or two additional b-jets in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV using the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(1), 11–37pp.
Abstract: Fiducial cross-sections for t (t) over bar production with one or two additional b-jets are reported, using an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider, collected with the ATLAS detector. The cross-section times branching ratio for t (t) over bar events with at least one additional b-jet is measured to be 950 +/- 70 (stat.)(-190)(+240) (syst.) fb in the lepton-plus-jets channel and 50 +/- 10 (stat.)(-10)(+15) (syst.) fb in the e μchannel. The cross-section times branching ratio for events with at least two additional b-jets is measured to be 19.3 +/- 3.5 (stat.) +/- 5.7 (syst.) fb in the dilepton channel (e mu, μmu, and ee) using a method based on tight selection criteria, and 13.5 +/- 3.3 (stat.) +/- 3.6 (syst.) fb using a looser selection that allows the background normalisation to be extracted from data. The latter method also measures a value of 1.30 +/- 0.33 (stat.) +/- 0.28 (syst.)% for the ratio of t (t) over bar production with two additional b-jets to t (t) over bar production with any two additional jets. All measurements are in good agreement with recent theory predictions.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for single top-quark production via flavour-changing neutral currents at 8TeV with the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(2), 55–30pp.
Abstract: A search for single top-quark production via flavour-changing neutral current processes from gluon plus up- or charm-quark initial states in proton-proton collisions at the LHC is presented. Data collected with the ATLAS detector in 2012 at a centre-of-mass energy of 8TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1) are used. Candidate events for a top quark decaying into a lepton, a neutrino and a jet are selected and classified into signal- and background-like candidates using a neural network. No signal is observed and an upper limit on the production cross-section multiplied by the t -> Wb branching fraction is set. The observed 95% CL limit is sigma(qg -> t) x B(t -> Wb) < 3.4 pb and the expected 95% CL limit is sigma(qg -> t) x B(t -> Wb) < 2.9 pb. The observed limit can be interpreted as upper limits on the coupling constants of the flavour-changing neutral current interactions divided by the scale of new physics kappa(ugt)/Lambda < 5.8 x 10(-3) TeV-1 and kappa(cgt)/Lambda < 13x10(-3) TeV and on the branching fractions B(t -> ug) < 4.0 x 10(-5) and B(t -> cg) < 20 x 10(-5).
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). A new method to distinguish hadronically decaying boosted Z bosons from W bosons using the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(5), 238–33pp.
Abstract: The distribution of particles inside hadronic jets produced in the decay of boosted W and Z bosons can be used to discriminate such jets from the continuum background. Given that a jet has been identified as likely resulting from the hadronic decay of a boosted W or Z boson, this paper presents a technique for further differentiating Z bosons from W bosons. The variables used are jet mass, jet charge, and a b-tagging discriminant. A likelihood tagger is constructed from these variables and tested in the simulation of W' -> WZ for bosons in the transverse momentum range 200 GeV < p(T) < 400 GeV in root s = 8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. For Z-boson tagging efficiencies of epsilon(Z) = 90, 50, and 10 %, one can achieve W+-boson tagging rejection factors (1/epsilon(W+)) of 1.7, 8.3 and 1000, respectively. It is not possible to measure these efficiencies in the data due to the lack of a pure sample of high p(T), hadronically decaying Z bosons. However, the modelling of the tagger inputs for boosted W bosons is studied in data using a t (t) over bar -enriched sample of events in 20.3 fb(-1) of data at root s = 8 TeV. The inputs are well modelled within uncertainties, which builds confidence in the expected tagger performance.
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