Probing TeV scale Top-Philic Resonances with Boosted Top-Tagging at the High Luminosity LHC

TL;DR

This paper assesses the potential to discover top-philic resonances at the HL-LHC using boosted top-tagging techniques across multiple channels, demonstrating improved sensitivity through combined analyses.

Contribution

It introduces new boosted top-tagging strategies and combines multiple channels to enhance the discovery potential of top-philic resonances at the HL-LHC.

Findings

Same-sign dilepton channel offers the best sensitivity.

Boosted top-tagging improves significance by up to 20%.

Combining channels increases overall discovery reach.

Abstract

We investigate the discovery potential of singly produced top-philic resonances at the high luminosity (HL) LHC in the four-top final state. Our analysis spans over the fully-hadronic, semi-leptonic, and same-sign dilepton channels where we present concrete search strategies adequate to a boosted kinematic regime and high jet-multiplicity environments. We utilize the Template Overlap Method (TOM) with newly developed template observables for tagging boosted top quarks, a large-radius jet variable $M_J$ and customized b-tagging tactics for background discrimination. Our results show that the same-sign dilepton channel gives the best sensitivity among the considered channels, with an improvement of significance up to 10%-20% when combined with boosted-top tagging. Both the fully-hadronic and semi-leptonic channels yield comparable discovery potential and contribute to further enhancements in the sensitivity by combining all channels. Finally, we show the sensitivity of a top-philic resonance at the LHC and HL-LHC by showing the $2\sigma$ exclusion limit and $5\sigma$ discovery reach, including a combination of all three channels.