Scientific article
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Search for flavour-changing neutral-current couplings between the top quark and the Higgs boson in multi-lepton final states in 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

ContributorsATLAS Collaboration
Publication date2024
First online date2024-07-29
Abstract

A search is presented for flavour-changing neutral-current interactions involving the top quark, the Higgs boson and an up-type quark ($q=u,c$) with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis considers leptonic decays of the top quark along with Higgs boson decays into two $W$ bosons, two $Z$ bosons or a $\tau ^{+}\tau ^{-}$ pair. It focuses on final states containing either two leptons (electrons or muons) of the same charge or three leptons. The considered processes are $t\bar{t}$ and Ht production. For the $t\bar{t}$ production, one top quark decays via $t\rightarrow Hq$. The proton–proton collision data set analysed amounts to $({140}\,{\hbox {fb}^{-1}})$ at $(\sqrt{s}={13}\,\hbox {TeV})$. No significant excess beyond Standard Model expectations is observed and upper limits are set on the $t\rightarrow Hq$ branching ratios at 95 % confidence level, amounting to observed (expected) limits of $\mathcal {B}(t\rightarrow Hu)<2.8\,(3.0) \times 10^{-4}$ and $\mathcal {B}(t\rightarrow Hc)<3.3\,(3.8) \times 10^{-4}$. Combining this search with other searches for $tHq$ flavour-changing neutral-current interactions previously conducted by ATLAS, considering $H\rightarrow b\bar{b}$ and $H\rightarrow \gamma \gamma $ decays, as well as $H\rightarrow \tau ^{+}\tau ^{-}$ decays with one or two hadronically decaying $\tau $-leptons, yields observed (expected) upper limits on the branching ratios of $\mathcal {B}(t\rightarrow Hu)<2.6\,(1.8) \times 10^{-4}$ and $\mathcal {B}(t\rightarrow Hc)<3.4\,(2.3) \times 10^{-4}$.

Keywords
  • Neutral current: flavor changing
  • Top: pair production
  • P p: scattering
  • Neutral current: coupling
  • Higgs particle: decay
  • Top: decay
  • Top: leptonic decay
  • ATLAS
  • Branching ratio
  • Lepton
  • TeV
  • Muon
  • New physics
  • Electron
  • Quark
  • CERN LHC Coll
  • Q007.12
  • Q007.13
Citation (ISO format)
ATLAS Collaboration. Search for flavour-changing neutral-current couplings between the top quark and the Higgs boson in multi-lepton final states in 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector. In: European physical journal. C, Particles and fields, 2024, vol. 84, n° 7. doi: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-12994-1
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Article (Published version)
Identifiers
Journal ISSN1434-6044
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