Search for a new heavy resonance decaying to a top quark and a neutral scalar boson in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search at the LHC for a new heavy resonance decaying into a top quark and a neutral scalar boson, using fully hadronic final states and advanced jet substructure techniques, setting new limits on vector-like top quark masses.

Contribution

First LHC search for a heavy resonance decaying to a top quark and a neutral scalar boson in fully hadronic final states, combining with previous semileptonic results to improve constraints.

Findings

Excluded T' quark masses between 0.85 and 1.3 TeV at 95% CL for specific model parameters.

Set upper limits as low as 0.1 fb on production cross section times branching ratio for other scalar masses.

No significant excess observed over background predictions.

Abstract

A first search at the LHC for a new heavy resonance decaying to a top quark and a neutral scalar boson $\phi$ in the fully hadronic final state is presented, where the $\phi$ boson is identified by its decay into a bottom quark-antiquark pair. The search is focused on final states in which the decay products of the highly Lorentz boosted top quark and $\phi$ boson are each reconstructed as a single, large-radius jet with distinct substructure. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$, recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2016$-$2018. The single production of a vector-like top quark, $\mathrm{T}'$, is used as a benchmark model for the signal process. The results of this search are combined with those of a previous CMS search in which semileptonic decays of the top quark were used. No significant excess of data is observed with respect to the background prediction. For the case where the neutral scalar is a standard model Higgs boson and the $\mathrm{T}'$ quark width is 5% of its mass, $\mathrm{T}'$ quark masses between 0.85 and 1.3 TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level and the most stringent limits to date are set for masses above 2 TeV. For other $\phi$ boson masses, upper limits as low as 0.1 fb are set on the product of the $\mathrm{T}'$ quark production cross section and branching fraction for its decay to a top quark and a $\phi$ boson.