Flavor changing Z' couplings at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential for observing flavor-changing Z' couplings involving the top quark at the LHC, focusing on the associated production process and the luminosity needed for detection.

Contribution

It introduces a study of flavor-changing Z' couplings with third-generation preference, analyzing their observability through single top-quark production at the LHC.

Findings

Observable Z'tc and Z'tu couplings require a few hundred fb$^{-1}$ of data.

Associated production of top quark and Z' can probe flavor-changing neutral currents.

Higher luminosity improves the sensitivity to flavor-changing Z' interactions.

Abstract

Models with a non-universal Z' exhibit in general flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC) at tree-level. When the Z' couplings favor the third generation, flavor changing transitions of the form Z'tc and Z'tu could be large enough to be observable at the LHC. In this paper we explore this possibility using the associated production of a single top-quark with the Z' and find that integrated luminosities of a few hundred fb$^{-1}$ are necessary to probe the interesting region of parameter space.