Discovery potential of top-partners in a realistic composite Higgs model with early LHC data

TL;DR

This paper investigates the discovery potential of top-partners in a realistic composite Higgs model using early LHC data, highlighting promising multi-lepton signatures and a novel mass reconstruction method for exotic quarks.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of collider signatures of top-partners in composite Higgs models and introduces a new leptonic mass reconstruction technique for exotic quarks.

Findings

Same-sign and three-lepton final states can achieve 5 sigma discovery with early LHC data.

Exotic quarks with charge 5/3 are distinctive and identifiable.

New method for mass reconstruction without relying on jets.

Abstract

Composite Higgs models provide a natural, non-supersymmetric solution to the hierarchy problem. In these models, one or more sets of heavy top-partners are typically introduced. Some of these new quarks can be relatively light, with a mass of a few hundred GeV, and could be observed with the early LHC collision data expected to be collected during 2010. We analyse in detail the collider signatures that these new quarks can produce. We show that final states with two (same-sign) or three leptons are the most promising discovery channels. They can yield a 5 sigma excess over the Standard Model expectation already with the 2010 LHC collision data. Exotic quarks of charge 5/3 are a distinctive feature of this model. We present a new method to reconstruct their masses from their leptonic decay without relying on jets in the final state.