Top Partners Searches and Composite Higgs Models

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how experimental searches for top partner particles at the LHC impact theoretical models of the Composite Higgs scenario, using simplified benchmark models to visualize exclusion limits.

Contribution

It introduces a formalism for translating experimental exclusion results into theoretical constraints within simple benchmark models.

Findings

Exclusion contours are derived for top partner searches.

The formalism allows for straightforward interpretation of experimental results.

Results help constrain parameter spaces of Composite Higgs models.

Abstract

Colored fermionic partners of the top quark are well-known signatures of the Composite Higgs scenario and for this reason they have been and will be subject of an intensive experimental study at the LHC. Performing an assessment of the theoretical implications of this experimental effort is the goal of the present paper. We proceed by analyzing a set of simple benchmark models, characterized by simple two-dimensional parameter spaces where the results of the searches are conveniently visualized and their impact quantified. We only draw exclusion contours, in the hypothesis of no signal, but of course our formalism could equally well be used to report discoveries in a theoretically useful format.