Lorentz and CPT Violation in Top-Quark Production

TL;DR

This paper calculates how Lorentz and CPT violations could affect top-quark production at the LHC, enabling new tests of fundamental symmetries using collider data.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculations of Lorentz-violating effects in top-quark pair and single-top production processes at the LHC.

Findings

Cross section for top-quark pair production affected by Lorentz violation.

Single-top production sensitive to CPT violation.

LHC data can set new constraints on top-quark sector violations.

Abstract

Signals for Lorentz and CPT violation can appear in a wide range of experiments including hadron colliders like the LHC. We present a calculation of the Lorentz-violating cross section for top-quark pair production via gluon fusion. This process dominates at the LHC, and analysis of LHC data should permit sharpening the constraints on top-quark Lorentz violation obtained recently by the D0 Collaboration. We also present a separate calculation of single-top production, which is sensitive to CPT violation. Data from the LHC can be used to measure coefficients for CPT violation in the top-quark sector for the first time.