Ultraboosted $Zt$ and $\gamma t$ production at the HL-LHC and FCC-hh

TL;DR

This paper estimates the sensitivity of the HL-LHC and FCC-hh colliders to flavor-changing top interactions via $Zt$ and $\gamma t$ production, showing significant improvements over current limits.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed sensitivity projections for $Zt$ and $\gamma t$ production at future colliders, highlighting their potential to probe rare top decays.

Findings

LHC can reach $10^{-5}$ limits on $t o uZ/u\gamma$

FCC-hh can reach $10^{-6}$ limits on $t o uZ/u\gamma$

Future colliders significantly improve constraints on flavor-changing top interactions.

Abstract

Searches for anomalous $Zt$ and $\gamma t$ production provide an excellent probe of flavour-changing top interactions when the energies considered are very large. In this note we estimate the sensitivity to these interactions at the high luminosity phase of the LHC and a future 100 TeV $pp$ collider (FCC-hh). For the LHC, the expected limits on $t \to uZ / u\gamma $ branching ratios from $Zt$ and $\gamma t$ production will reach the $10^{-5}$ level, one order of magnitude better than the existing projections for $t \to uZ$ from $t \bar t$ production. For the FCC-hh, the limits on $t \to uZ / u\gamma$ could reach an impressive sensitivity at the $10^{-6}$ level, with limits on $t \to cZ / c\gamma$ at the $10^{-5}$ level.