Measurements of observables sensitive to colour reconnection in $t\bar{t}$ events with the ATLAS detector at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV

TL;DR

This paper measures observables sensitive to colour reconnection effects in top-quark pair-production events at 13 TeV, providing data that challenges some existing models and aids future Monte Carlo generator tuning.

Contribution

First measurement of colour reconnection-sensitive observables in top-quark events at 13 TeV, with results used to constrain and improve Monte Carlo models.

Findings

Some colour reconnection models are disfavoured by the data.

Particle-level measurements are unfolded to correct for detector effects.

Results provide inputs for future Monte Carlo generator optimization.

Abstract

A measurement of observables sensitive to effects of colour reconnection in top-quark pair-production events is presented using 139 fb$^{-1}$ of 13$\,$TeV proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are selected by requiring exactly one isolated electron and one isolated muon with opposite charge and two or three jets, where exactly two jets are required to be $b$-tagged. For the selected events, measurements are presented for the charged-particle multiplicity, the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of the charged particles, and the same scalar sum in bins of charged-particle multiplicity. These observables are unfolded to the stable-particle level, thereby correcting for migration effects due to finite detector resolution, acceptance and efficiency effects. The particle-level measurements are compared with different colour reconnection models in Monte Carlo generators. These measurements disfavour some of the colour reconnection models and provide inputs to future optimisation of the parameters in Monte Carlo generators.