Searches for violation of Lorentz invariance in top quark pair production using dilepton events in 13 TeV proton-proton collisions

TL;DR

This paper searches for Lorentz invariance violation in top quark pair production at 13 TeV, finding no evidence of violation and setting new, more stringent limits on Lorentz-violating couplings using CMS data.

Contribution

First precision test of Lorentz invariance in top quark production at the LHC, improving bounds on Lorentz-violating couplings by up to two orders of magnitude.

Findings

No evidence of Lorentz invariance violation detected.

Set upper limits on Lorentz-violating couplings ranging from 1-8 x 10^{-3}.

First such test with top quarks at the LHC.

Abstract

A search for violation of Lorentz invariance in the production of top quark pairs ($\mathrm{t\bar{t}}$) is presented. The measured normalized differential $\mathrm{t\bar{t}}$ production cross section, as function of the sidereal time, is examined for potential modulations induced by Lorentz-invariance breaking operators in an effective field theory extension of the standard model (SM). The cross section is measured from collision events collected by the CMS detector at a center-of-mass-energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 77.8 fb$^{-1}$, and containing one electron and one muon. The results are found to be compatible with zero, in agreement with the SM, and are used to place upper limits at 68% confidence level on the magnitude of the Lorentz-violating couplings ranging from 1-8 $\times$ 10$^{-3}$. This is the first precision test of the isotropy in special relativity with top quarks at the LHC, restricting further the bounds on such couplings by up two orders of magnitude with respect to previous searches conducted at the Tevatron.