Author(s): Onofre, A. ; Castro, Nuno Filipe Silva Fernandes ; ATLAS Collaboration
Date: 2016
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/43758
Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Project/scholarship: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/3599-PPCDT/143069/PT ;
Subject(s): Ciências Naturais::Ciências Físicas; Science & Technology
A search for single top-quark production via flavour-changing neutral current processes from gluon plus up- or charm-quark initial states in proton–proton collisions at the LHC is presented. Data collected with the ATLAS detector in 2012 at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1 are used. Candidate events for a top quark decaying into a lepton, a neutrino and a jet are selected and classified into signal- and background-like candidates using a neural network. No signal is observed and an upper limit on the production cross-section multiplied by the t→Wb branching fraction is set. The observed 95 % CL limit is σqg→t×B(t→Wb)<3.4pb and the expected 95 % CL limit is σqg→t×B(t→Wb)<2.9pb. The observed limit can be interpreted as upper limits on the coupling constants of the flavour-changing neutral current interactions divided by the scale of new physics κugt/Λ<5.8×10−3TeV−1 and κcgt/Λ<13×10−3TeV and on the branching fractions B(t→ug)<4.0×10−5 and B(t→cg)<20×10−5.
We thank CERN for the very successful operation of the LHC, as well as the support staff from our institutions without whom ATLAS could not be operated efficiently. We acknowledge the support of ANPCyT, Argentina; YerPhI, Armenia; ARC, Australia; BMWFW and FWF, Austria; ANAS, Azerbaijan; SSTC, Belarus; CNPq and FAPESP, Brazil; NSERC, NRC and CFI, Canada; CERN; CONICYT, Chile; CAS, MOST and NSFC, China; COLCIENCIAS, Colombia; MSMTCR, MPOCR and VSC CR, Czech Republic; DNRF, DNSRC and Lundbeck Foundation, Denmark; IN2P3-CNRS, CEA-DSM/IRFU, France; GNSF, Georgia; BMBF, HGF, and MPG, Germany; GSRT, Greece; RGC, Hong Kong SAR, China; ISF, I-CORE and Benoziyo Center, Israel; INFN, Italy; MEXT and JSPS, Japan; CNRST, Morocco; FOM and NWO, Netherlands; RCN, Norway; MNiSW and NCN, Poland; FCT, Portugal; MNE/IFA, Romania; MES of Russia and NRC KI, Russian Federation; JINR; MESTD, Serbia; MSSR, Slovakia; ARRS and MIZS, Slovenia; DST/NRF, South Africa; MINECO, Spain; SRC and Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden; SERI, SNSF and Cantons of Bern and Geneva, Switzerland; MOST, Taiwan; TAEK, Turkey; STFC, UK; DOE and NSF, USA. In addition, individual groups and members have received support from BCKDF, the Canada Council, CANARIE, CRC, Compute Canada, FQRNT, and the Ontario Innovation Trust, Canada; EPLANET, ERC, FP7, Horizon 2020 and Marie SklodowskaCurie Actions, European Union; Investissements d'Avenir Labex and Idex, ANR, Region Auvergne and Fondation Partager le Savoir, France; DFG and AvH Foundation, Germany; Herakleitos, Thales and Aristeia programmes co-financed by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; BSF, GIF and Minerva, Israel; BRF, Norway; the Royal Society and Leverhulme Trust, UK. The crucial computing support from all WLCG partners is acknowledged gratefully, in particular from CERN and the ATLAS Tier-1 facilities at TRIUMF (Canada), NDGF (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), CC-IN2P3 (France), KIT/GridKA (Germany), INFNCNAF (Italy), NL-T1 (Netherlands), PIC (Spain), ASGC (Taiwan), RAL (UK) and BNL (USA) and in the Tier-2 facilities worldwide.
