Finding the Charge of the top quark in the Dilepton Channel

TL;DR

This paper investigates the electric charge of the top quark using dilepton data from the CDF experiment, aiming to confirm if it aligns with the Standard Model or an exotic hypothesis.

Contribution

It introduces a method to determine the top quark's charge by pairing leptons with b-jets and analyzing the charge distribution to distinguish between hypotheses.

Findings

Supports the Standard Model top quark charge of 2/3

Provides a statistical framework to reject the exotic charge hypothesis

Uses dilepton data for charge determination

Abstract

There is a question about the identity of the top quark. Is it the top quark of the Standard Model (SM) with electric charge 2/3 or is it an exotic quark with charge -4/3? An exotic quark has been proposed by D. Chang et al.\cite{hep-ph/9810531, hep-ph/9805273}. This analysis will use the standard CDF run II dilepton sample. The key ingredients of this analysis are the correct pairing of the lepton and b-jet, the determination of the charge of the b-jet. The analysis proceeds by using a binomial distribution and is formulated so that rejecting one hypothesis means support for the other hypothesis.