Triple-Top Signal of New Physics at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper calculates the likelihood of triple-top quark production at the LHC within the Standard Model and explores how certain new physics models could significantly enhance this process, offering a potential discovery channel.

Contribution

It provides leading-order cross sections for triple-top production in the Standard Model and demonstrates how specific new physics models can greatly increase this rate.

Findings

Standard Model triple-top cross section ~2 fb at 14 TeV

MSSM predicts up to 41 fb for gluino decays involving three tops

Leptophobic Z' model yields about 28 fb cross section

Abstract

We present leading-order (LO) cross sections for the production of three top quarks ($tt\tb$,$t\tb\tb$) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We find a total LO cross section for triple-top production in the Standard Model of $\sigma \approx 2 $ fb at $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV and we give examples of two new physics models which have a significant enhancement to this channel. In the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), there are regions of parameter space where the decays of gluino pairs into final states including three tops has a cross section $\sigma \approx 41$ fb. In a leptophobic $Z'$ model featuring right-handed couplings of the $u$-quark to the top, we find $\sigma \approx 28$ fb. With efficient identification and reconstruction of the top quarks, the triple-top signal could potentially provide evidence for new physics at the LHC.