Analysis of axion-like particles in a top-quark pair production at the CLIC

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential to detect axion-like particles through top-quark pair production at the CLIC collider in gamma-gamma mode, providing bounds on ALP-top couplings across a wide mass range.

Contribution

It presents the first analysis of ALP effects on top-quark pair production at CLIC, establishing exclusion bounds on ALP-top couplings for masses from 10 GeV to 10 TeV.

Findings

ALP-top couplings as small as 0.17 TeV$^{-1}$ at 1.5 TeV CLIC energy.

ALP-top couplings as small as 0.11 TeV$^{-1}$ at 3 TeV CLIC energy.

Comparison with existing constraints on ALP-top interactions.

Abstract

We examine a contribution of axion-like particles (ALPs) to a top pair production via the collision of Compton backscattered photons at the CLIC operating in a $\gamma\gamma$ mode. The exclusion bounds on the ALP-top quark coupling depending on the ALP mass $m_a$ are given. The mass range 10 GeV -- 10 TeV is considered. We have obtained that for $m_a = 10$ GeV the ALP-top quark couplings as small as $0.17$ TeV$^{-1}$ and $0.11$ TeV$^{-1}$ can be probed at the CLIC with the energy of 1.5 TeV and 3 TeV, respectively. A comparison with other constraints on the ALP-top coupling is given.