Search

We consider, at order $\alpha_s^2$ in the QCD coupling, top-quark pair production in the continuum at various center-of-mass energies and $b$-quark pair production at the $Z$ resonance by (un)polarized electron and positron beams. For top quarks we compute the forward-backward asymmetry with respect to the top-quark direction of flight, the associated polar angle distribution, and we analyze the effect of beam polarization on the QCD corrections to the leading-order asymmetry. We calculate also the polarized forward-backward asymmetry. For $b$-quark production at the $Z$ peak we explore different definitions of $A_{\rm FB}$. In particular, we analyze $b$ jets defined by the Durham and the flavor-$k_T$ clustering algorithms. We compute the inclusive $b$-jet and two-jet asymmetry with respect to the $b$-jet direction. For the latter asymmetry the QCD corrections to order $\alpha_s^2$ are small. That predestines it to act as a precision observable., Comment: The scale uncertainties on the asymmetries are added, matched to the version accepted for publication in JHEP

We study the relations between low-energy constants (LECs) in the chiral Lagrangians with $\Delta(1232)$ and those in the quark-level description model up to the third chiral order. Ten structure correspondences are involved in getting the relations. This situation is more complicated than the spin-1/2 baryon case. The obtained results may help to further investigations involving the $\Delta(1232)$ baryons., Comment: Version accepted by Eur. Phys. J. C. 10 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables

Heavy Majorana neutrinos beyond the standard model can simultaneously explain the origin of tiny neutrino masses and matter-antimatter asymmetry in our Universe. The existence of heavy Majorana neutrinos will also lead to lepton number violation and the rare lepton-number-violating $W$ decays are possible. With contributions from two different Majorana neutrinos, a nonzero CP asymmetry may be generated from the rate difference between $W$ decay and its CP-conjugate process. The aim of this paper is to investigate the prospects for measuring CP violation in rare $W$ decays via Majorana neutrinos at the LHC. Our calculations show that the induced CP asymmetry is independent of the Majorana neutrino mass for $10~ \rm GeV < m_N < 70 ~\rm GeV$. Such a CP asymmetry if observed, would in turn provide unambiguous evidence of new physics beyond the standard model., 15 pages,6 Figures, 1 Table

The quark model symmetry can be adopted to establish relations between the low-energy constants (LECs) in the baryon chiral perturbation theory ($\chi PT$) if one assumes that a baryon-baryon-meson coupling is described equivalently by a quark-quark-meson coupling at the quark level. Through the correspondence between the $SU(2)$ description and the $SU(3)$ description for the same coupling vertex at the quark level, we find some relations between the LECs in $SU(2)_{\chi PT}$ and $SU(3)_{\chi PT}$ up to the third chiral order. The $SU(3)_{\chi PT}$ LEC relations at the same order are also obtained. The numerical analysis roughly supports these relations. In the situation that the available experimental data are not enough, one may employ such constraints to reduce the number of LECs., Comment: Version to appear in PRD. 16 pages, 2 figures, 7 tables

The heavy singlet Majorana neutrinos are introduced to generate the neutrino mass in the so-called phenomenological type-I seesaw mechanism. The phenomena induced by the heavy Majorana neutrinos are important to search for new physics. In this paper, we explore the heavy Majorana neutrino production and decay at future $e^{-}p$ colliders. The corresponding cross sections via $W$ and photon fusion are predicted for different collider energies. Combined with the results of the heavy Majorana neutrino production via single $W$ exchange, this work can provide helpful information to search for heavy Majorana neutrinos at future $e^{-}p$ colliders., 15 pages, 16 figures

Right-handed (RH) Majorana neutrinos play a crucial role in understanding the origin of neutrino mass, the nature of dark matter and the mechanism of matter-antimatter asymmetry. In this work, we investigate the observability of heavy Majorana neutrino through the top quark neutrinoless double beta decay process $t \to b \ell^+ \ell^+ j j$ at hadron colliders. By performing detector level simulation, we demonstrate that our method can give stronger limits on the light-heavy neutrino mixing parameters $|V_{eN, \mu N}|$ in the mass range of 15 GeV $< m_N, Comment: 6 pages, discussions added, version published in PRD (rapid communication)

We have systematically investigated the mass spectrum and rearrangement decay properties of the exotic tetraquark states with four different flavors using a color-magnetic interaction model. Their masses are estimated by assuming that the $X(4140)$ is a $cs\bar{c}\bar{s}$ tetraquark state and their decay widths are obtained by assuming that the Hamiltonian for decay is a constant. According to the adopted method, we find that the most stable states are probably the isoscalar $bs\bar{u}\bar{d}$ and $cs\bar{u}\bar{d}$ with $J^P=0^+$ and $1^+$. The width for most unstable tetraquarks is about tens of MeVs, but that for unstable $cu\bar{s}\bar{d}$ and $cs\bar{u}\bar{d}$ can be around 100 MeV. For the $X(5568)$, our method cannot give consistent mass and width if it is a $bu\bar{s}\bar{d}$ tetraquark state. For the $I(J^P)=0(0^+),0(1^+)$ double-heavy $T_{bc}=bc\bar{u}\bar{d}$ states, their widths can be several MeVs., Version published in PRD. 18 pages, 1 figure, 9 tables

We calculate the masses of the $QQ\bar{q}\bar{q}$ ($Q=c,b$; $q=u,d,s$) tetraquark states with the aid of heavy diquark-antiquark symmetry (HDAS) and the chromomagnetic interaction (CMI) model. The masses of the highest-spin ($J=2$) tetraquarks that have only the $(QQ)_{\bar{3}_c}(\bar{q}\bar{q})_{3_c}$ color structure are related with those of conventional hadrons using HDAS. Thereafter, the masses of their partner states are determined with the mass splittings in the CMI model. Our numerical results reveal that: (i) the lightest $cc\bar{n}\bar{n}$ ($n=u,d$) is an $I(J^P)=0(1^+)$ state around 3929 MeV (53 MeV above the $DD^*$ threshold) and none of the double-charm tetraquarks are stable; (ii) the stable double-bottom tetraquarks are the lowest $0(1^+)$ $bb\bar{n}\bar{n}$ around 10488 MeV ($\approx116$ MeV below the $BB^*$ threshold) and the lowest $1/2(1^+)$ $bb\bar{n}\bar{s}$ around 10671 MeV ($\approx20$ MeV below the $BB_s^*/B_sB^*$ threshold); and (iii) the two lowest $bc\bar{n}\bar{n}$ tetraquarks, namely the lowest $0(0^+)$ around 7167 MeV and the lowest $0(1^+)$ around 7223 MeV, are near-threshold states. Moreover, we discuss the constraints on the masses of double-heavy hadrons. Specifically, for the lowest nonstrange tetraquarks, we obtain $T_{cc}, 19 pages, 4 figures, and 11 tables

In an extended effective operator framework of isospin violating interactions with light mediators, we investigate the compatibility of the candidate signal of the CDMS-II-Si with the latest constraints from DarkSide-50 and XENON-1T, etc. We show that the constraints from DarkSide-50 which utilizes Argon as the target is complementary to that from XENON-1T which utilizes Xenon. Combining the results of the two experiments, we find that for isospin violating interaction with light mediator there is no parameter space which can be compatible with the positive signals from CDMS-II-Si. As a concrete example of this framework, we investigate the dark photon model in detail. We obtain the combined limits on the dark matter mass $m_{\chi}$, the dark photon mass $m_{A'}$, and the kinetic mixing parameter $\varepsilon$ in the dark photon model. The DarkSide-50 gives more stringent upper limits in the region of mediator mass from 0.001 to 1 GeV, for $m_{\chi} \lesssim 6$ GeV in the ($m_{A'}$,$\varepsilon$) plane, and more stringent constraints for $m_{\chi}\lesssim 8$ GeV and $\varepsilon \thicksim 10^{-8}$ in the ($m_{\chi}$,$m_{A'}$) plane., Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures

Dark sector may couple to the Standard Model via one or more mediator particles. We discuss two types of mediators: the dark photon $A^{\prime}$ and the dark scalar mediator $\phi$. The total cross-sections and various differential distributions of the processes $e^{+} e^{-} \rightarrow q \bar{q} A^{\prime}$ and $e^{+} e^{-} \rightarrow q \bar{q} \phi$ ($q=u,~d,~c,~s$ and $b$ quarks) are discussed. We focus on the study of the invisible $A^{\prime}$ due to the cleaner background at future $e^{+} e^{-}$ colliders. It is found that the kinematic distributions of the two-jet system could be used to identify (or exclude) the dark photon and the dark scalar mediator, as well as to distinguish between them. We further study the possibility of a search for dark photons at a future CEPC experiment with $\sqrt{s}=$ 91.2 GeV and 240 GeV. With CEPC running at $\sqrt{s}=$ 91.2 GeV, it would be possible to perform a decisive measurement of the dark photon (20 GeV $< m_{A^{\prime}}, Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, to be published in Chinese Physics C

Lepton number violation processes can be induced by the Majorana neutrino exchange, which provide evidence for the Majorana nature of neutrinos. In addition to the natural explanation of the small neutrino masses, Type-I seesaw mechanism predicts the existence of Majorana neutrinos. The aim of this work is to study the B meson rare decays $B^{+} \to K^{(*)+}\mu^+\mu^-$ in the standard model and its extensions, and then to investigate the same-sign decay processes $B^{+}\to K^{(*)-}\mu^{+}\mu^+$. The corresponding dilepton invariant mass distributions are predicted. It is found that the dilepton angular distributions illustrate the properties of new interactions induced by the Majorana neutrinos., Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures

We consider the decay of a neutral Higgs boson of arbitrary CP nature to a massive quark antiquark pair at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. Our analysis is made at the differential level using the antenna subtraction framework. We apply our general set-up to the decays of a CP-even and CP-odd heavy Higgs boson to a top-quark top-antiquark pair and to the decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to a massive bottom-quark bottom-antiquark pair. In the latter case we calculate, in particular, the two-jet, three-jet, and four-jet decay rates and, for two-jet events, the energy distribution of the leading jet., Latex, 23 pages, a reference added

The Principle of Maximum Conformality (PMC) provides a systematic way to eliminate the renormalization scheme and renormalization scale uncertainties for high-energy processes. We have observed that by applying PMC scale-setting, one obtains comprehensive and self-consistent pQCD predictions for the top-quark pair total cross-section and the top-quark pair forward-backward asymmetry in agreement with the measurements at the Tevatron and LHC. As a step forward, in the present paper, we determine the top-quark pole mass via a detailed comparison of the top-quark pair cross-section with the measurements at the Tevatron and LHC. The results for the top-quark pole mass are $m_t=174.6^{+3.1}_{-3.2}$ GeV for the Tevatron with $\sqrt{S}=1.96$ TeV, $m_t=173.7\pm1.5$ GeV and $174.2\pm1.7$ GeV for the LHC with $\sqrt{S} = 7$ TeV and $8$ TeV, respectively. Those predictions agree with the average, $173.34\pm0.76$ GeV, obtained from various collaborations via direct measurements. The consistency of the pQCD predictions using the PMC with all of the collider measurements at different energies provides an important verification of QCD., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. Revised version to be published in Eur.Phys.J.C

The direct observation of the Yukawa interaction related to Standard Model Higgs and the bottom quark is obtained from the $h\to b\bar{b}$ process recently. The b-tagging becomes an important tool to search for new heavy resonance production at LHC. We use the b-tagging method to investigate the neutral Higgs production in association with a bottom quark pair, and perform the detector simulation for the signal process with the Higgs decaying into $b\bar{b}$ or $\tau^+\tau^-$ together with the dominant backgrounds. Our results show that $b\bar{b}b\bar{b}$ and $b\bar{b}\tau^+\tau^-$ processes will play an important role to search for the exotic heavy Higgs production at LHC and future hadron colliders., Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures

We analyze, within several parameter scenarios of type-II two-Higgs doublet extensions of the standard model, the impact of heavy neutral Higgs-boson resonances on top-quark pair production and their subsequent decay to dileptonic final states at the LHC (13 TeV). In particular, we investigate the effects of heavy Higgs bosons on top-spin observables, that is, the longitudinal top-quark polarization and top-quark spin correlations. We take into account NLO QCD as well as weak interaction corrections and show that top-spin observables, if evaluated in judiciously chosen top-quark pair invariant mass bins, can significantly enhance the sensitivity to heavy Higgs resonances in top-quark pair events., 36 pages, 9 figures

We study one possible production mechanism for hidden charm pentaquark in e+e- collision, where it is produced via a color-octet c \bar c pair fragmentation. The pentaquark production at B factory energy is dominated by e+e- to c \bar c g to Pc + X. At Z^0 pole, for the pentaquark production, there are several partonic processes playing significant role. Our results show that it is possible to search for the direct pentaquark production signal at e+e- colliders, which is important to understand the properties of pentaquark., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables

Physics letters / B 775, 233 - 238 (2017). doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2017.11.002, Combined HERA data on charm production in deep-inelastic scattering have previously been used to determine the charm-quark running mass $m_{c}(m_{c})$ in the $\overline{MS}$renormalisation scheme. Here, the same data are used as a function of the photon virtuality $Q^2$ to evaluate the charm-quark running mass at different scales to one-loop order, in the context of a next-to-leading order QCD analysis. The scale dependence of the mass is found to be consistent with QCD expectations., Published by Elsevier, Amsterdam

B meson semi-leptonic rare decays are sensitive to new physics beyond standard model. We study the $B^{-}\to \pi^{-}\mu^{+}\mu^{-}$ process and investigate the Majorana neutrino contribution to its decay width. The constraints on the Majorana neutrino mass and mixing parameter are obtained from this decay channel with the latest LHCb data. Utilizing the best fit for the parameters, we study the lepton number violating decay $B^{-}\to \pi^{+}\mu^{-}\mu^{-}$, and find its branching ratio is about $6.4\times10^{-10}$, which is consistent with the LHCb data reported recently., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures

We set up a formalism, within the antenna subtraction framework, for computing the production of a massive quark-antiquark pair in electron positron collisions at next-to-next-to-leading order in the coupling $\alpha_s$ of quantum chromodynamics at the differential level. Our formalism applies to the calculation of any infrared-safe observable. We apply this set-up to the production of top-quark top antiquark pairs in the continuum. We compute the production cross section and several distributions. We determine, in particular, the top-quark forward-backward asymmetry at order $\alpha_s^2$. Our result agrees with previous computations of this observable., Comment: Latex, 33 pages, reference added

We investigate, within the type-II two-Higgs-doublet extension of the standard model (SM), the impact of heavy neutral Higgs boson resonances with unsuppressed Yukawa couplings to top quarks on top-quark pair production at the LHC at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant. We take into account the resonant Higgs boson contributions, the non-resonant SM $t\bar{t}$ continuum and the interference of these two contributions. The NLO QCD corrections to heavy Higgs production and the interference contributions are calculated in the large top-quark mass ($m_t$) limit, including an effective K-factor rescaling. Our evaluation of the QCD-Higgs interference is focused on the Higgs resonance region. Using representative CP-conserving as well as CP-violating parameter scenarios phenomenological results are presented for different observables., 10 pages, 4 figures, contribution to the proceedings of the Fourth Annual Large Hadron Collider Physics conference, 13-18 June 2016, Lund, Sweden

The non-relativistic wave function framework is applied to study the production and decay of the exotic hadrons which can be effectively described as bound states of other hadrons. Employing the factorized formulation, we investigate the production of exotic hadrons in the multiproduction processes at high energy hadronic colliders with the help of event generators. This study provides crucial information for the measurements of the relevant exotic hadrons., This paper also serves partially as the long write-up for the paper arXiv:1603.03250, to be published in Chinese Physics C

We investigate the production of heavy, neutral Higgs boson resonances and their decays to top-quark top-antiquark ($t\bar{t}$) pairs at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The NLO corrections to heavy Higgs boson production and the Higgs-QCD interference are calculated in the large $m_t$ limit with an effective K-factor rescaling. The nonresonant $t\bar{t}$ background is taken into account at NLO QCD including weak-interaction corrections. In order to consistently determine the total decay widths of the heavy Higgs bosons, we consider for definiteness the type-II two-Higgs-doublet extension of the standard model and choose three parameter scenarios that entail two heavy neutral Higgs bosons with masses above the $t\bar{t}$ threshold and unsuppressed Yukawa couplings to top quarks. For these three scenarios we compute, for the LHC operating at 13 TeV, the $t\bar{t}$ cross section and the distributions of the $t\bar{t}$ invariant mass, of the transverse top-quark momentum and rapidity, and of the cosine of the Collins-Soper angle with and without the two heavy Higgs resonances. For selected $M_{t\bar{t}}$ bins we estimate the significances for detecting a heavy Higgs signal in the $t\bar{t}$ dileptonic and lepton plus jets decay channels., Comment: 54 pages, 23 figures, v2: typos corrected, minor stylistic changes, matches published version

In this contribution we report on the calculation of the next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to the hadro-production of heavy neutral Higgs bosons and their decay into top-quark pairs within the type-II two-Higgs-doublet extension of the standard model (SM). We take into account the contributions from resonant Higgs boson production, the non-resonant SM $t\bar{t}$ background as well as the interference of these two contributions. The NLO corrections to the signal and interference contributions are calculated by applying the heavy top-quark mass ($m_t$) limit including an effective rescaling. In our NLO calculation the QCD-Higgs interference is evaluated in the resonance region that provides the dominant part of the heavy Higgs-boson contributions. Evaluating representative $CP$-conserving and $CP$-violating parameter scenarios within the two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM) we present results for different distributions and, in addition, for observables that depend on the top-quark spin., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, contribution to the proceedings of the 38th International Conference on High Energy Physics, 3-10 August 2016, Chicago, USA

We investigate a number of observables that are and will be instrumental in the exploration of $\tbart$ production and decay at the Tevatron and the LHC. For this analysis we made a computer program that incorporates besides the NLO QCD corrections to $\tbart$ production and decay also mixed weak-QCD corrections to the production amplitudes, and that allows for studies of correlated versus uncorrelated $\tbart$ events. In this paper we analyze and compute observables mostly for dileptonic $\tbart$ final states to next-to-leading order in the strong and weak gauge couplings (NLOW), with selection cuts. We calculate charge asymmetries of the top quark and of $\ell=e,\mu$ and we compare, where possible, with experimental results. We show that top-quark spin correlations affect a leptonic pair asymmetry (which has not been measured so far) by $\sim 7%$. We determine several dileptonic angular correlations, which reflect $\tbart$ spin correlations, namely the beam, off-diagonal and helicity correlation, and the opening angle distribution (defined in the $t$, $\bar t$ rest frames) when selection cuts are applied. Our NLOW predictions for the beam, off-diagonal, and helicity correlation for the Tevatron agree with recent measurements by the CDF and D0 experiments. In addition we make predictions for estimators of these correlations as functions of $\mtt$. These estimators may prove useful for the Tevatron and also in the early rounds of LHC data-analyses, where the event numbers will probably not be abundant. Furthermore, we compute to NLOW in the gauge couplings two dilepton angular correlations that are defined in the laboratory frame, for correlated and uncorrelated $\tbart$ events at the LHC. Finally, based on our SM results, we identify several observables that allow to search for non-standard parity- and CP-violating interactions, especially with future LHC data., Comment: Latex, 39 pages, 39 figures, 4 tables

In the conventional type-(I+II) seesaw model, the effective mass matrix of three known light neutrinos is given by M_nu = M_L - M_D M^{-1}_R M^T_D in the leading-order approximation. We propose an intriguing scenario, in which the structural cancellation condition M_D M^{-1}_R M^T_D = 0 is guaranteed by the A_4 x Z_2 flavor symmetry. As a consequence, neutrino masses are mainly generated by the Higgs triplet M_nu = M_L, while the neutrino mixing matrix is non-unitary and takes on the nearly tri-bimaximal pattern. A discriminating feature of this scenario from the pure type-II seesaw model is that the lepton-number-violating signatures induced by the heavy Majorana neutrinos can be discovered at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We calculate the total cross section of the same-sign dilepton events pp to l^+(-)_alpha N_i to l^+(-)_alpha l^+(-)_beta jj (for i=1, 2 and alpha, beta = e, mu, tau), and emphasize the significant interference of the contributions from two different heavy Majorana neutrinos. The background from the standard model and the kinematic cuts used to reduce it have been considered. The possible way to distinguish between the signals from heavy Majorana neutrinos and those from doubly-charged Higgs bosons is briefly discussed., Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, discussions about the SM background added, references updated. Accepted for publication in Phys. Lett. B

The unparticle effects on $t\bar t$ production at the future photon collider are investigated. Distributions of $t\bar t$ invariant mass and that for transverse momentum of top quark with respect to Standard Model and unparticle production are predicted. An odd valley with scalar unparticle contribution appears for some values of $d_{\U}$, which is due to the big cancellation between the contribution from SM and that from unparticle. This character may be used to study the properties of scalar unparticle. Our investigations also show that scalar unparticle may play a significant role in $t \bar t$ production at photon collider if it exists., 13 pages, 5figures

One of the future goals of the LHC is to precisely measure the properties of Higgs boson. The associated production of Higgs boson and the top quark pair is a promising process to investigate the related Yukawa interaction and the properties of Higgs. Compared with the pure scalar sector in the Standard Model, the Higgs sector contains both scalar and pseudoscalar in many new physics models, which makes the $t\bar t H$ interaction more complex and provides a variety of phenomena. To investigate the $t\bar t H$ interaction and the properties of Higgs, we study the top quark spin correlation observables at the LHC.

The D0 collaboration at FermiLab has recently measured the top-quark pair forward-backward asymmetry in $\bar p p \to t \bar{t} X$ reactions as a function of the $t\bar{t} $ invariant mass $M_{t\bar{t}}$. The D0 result for $A_{\rm FB}(M_{t\bar{t}}>650\, {\rm GeV})$ is smaller than $A_{\rm FB}(M_{t\bar{t}})$ obtained for small values of $M_{t\bar{t}}$, which may indicate an "increasing-decreasing" behavior for $A_{\rm FB}(M_{t\bar{t}}>M_{\rm cut})$. This behavior is not explained using conventional renormalization scale-setting, even by a next-to-next-to-leading order (N$^2$LO) QCD calculation -- one predicts a monotonically increasing behavior. In the conventional scale-setting method, one simply guesses a single renormalization scale $��_r$ for the argument of the QCD running coupling and then varies it over an arbitrary range. However, the conventional method has inherent difficulties. ...... In contrast, if one fixes the scale using the Principle of Maximum Conformality (PMC), the resulting pQCD predictions are renormalization-scheme independent since all of the scheme-dependent $\{��_i\}$-terms in the QCD perturbative series are resummed into the QCD running couplings at each order. ...... In this paper we show that if one applies the PMC to determine the top versus anti-top quark forward-backward asymmetry by properly using the pQCD predictions up to N$^2$LO level, one obtains the predictions without renormalization scheme or scale ambiguities. ...... In addition, the PMC prediction for $A_{\rm FB}(M_{t\bar{t}}> M_{\rm cut})$ shows an "increasing-decreasing" behavior for increasing values of $M_{\rm cut}$ which is not observed in the NLO and N$^2$LO predictions for $A_{\rm FB}(M_{t\bar{t}}> M_{\rm cut})$ with conventional scale-setting. This behavior could be tested by the future more precise measurements at the LHC., 7 pages, 2 figures. Revised version to be published in Phys.Rev.D

We consider top-antitop quark ($t{\bar t}$) production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with subsequent decay into dileptonic and lepton plus jets final states. We present a set of leptonic angular correlations and distributions with which experiments can probe all the independent coefficient functions of the top-spin dependent parts of the $t{\bar t}$ production spin density matrices. We compute these angular correlations and distributions for LHC center-of-mass energies 8, 13, and 14 TeV within the Standard Model at next-to-leading order in the QCD coupling including the mixed QCD-weak corrections and for the transverse top-quark polarization and the $t{\bar t}$ charge asymmetry also the mixed QCD-QED corrections. In addition we analyze and compute the effects of new interactions on these observables in terms of a gauge-invariant effective Lagrangian which contains all operators relevant for hadronic $t{\bar t}$ production up to mass dimension six., Latex, 35 pages, sevaral comments and 2 tables added, version to be published in JHEP

We report on our computation of the mixed QCD and weak corrections to $q {\bar q} \to t\bar{t}$ including $t, \bar t$ spin effects, in particular on single top spin asymmetries., Talk given at "International Conference on QCD and Hadronic Physics", Beijing, China, 16-20 Jun 2005

The Principle of Maximum Conformality (PMC) provides a systematic and process-independent method to derive renormalization scheme- and scale- independent fixed-order pQCD predictions. In Ref.\cite{pmc3}, we studied the top-quark charge asymmetry at the Tevatron. By applying the PMC, we have shown that the large discrepancies for the top-quark charge asymmetry between the Standard Model estimate and the CDF and D0 data are greatly reduced. In the present paper, with the help of the Bernreuther-Si program, we present a detailed PMC analysis on the top-quark pair production up to next-to-next-to-leading order level at the LHC. After applying PMC scale setting, the pQCD prediction for the top-quark charge asymmetry at the LHC has very small scale uncertainty; e.g., $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 7 TeV;PMC} =\left(1.15^{+0.01}_{-0.03}\right)\%$, $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 8 TeV;PMC} =\left(1.03^{+0.01}_{+0.00}\right)\%$, and $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 14 TeV;PMC} =\left(0.62^{+0.00}_{-0.02}\right)\%$. The corresponding predictions using conventional scale setting are: $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 7 TeV;Conv.} =\left(1.23^{+0.14}_{-0.14}\right)\%$, $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 8 TeV;Conv.} =\left(1.11^{+0.17}_{-0.13}\right)\%$, and $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 14 TeV;Conv.} =\left(0.67^{+0.05}_{-0.05}\right)\%$. In these predictions, the scale errors are predicted by varying the initial renormalization and factorization scales in the ranges $\mu^{\rm init}_r\in[m_t/2,2m_t]$ and $\mu_f\in[m_t/2,2m_t]$. The PMC predictions are also in better agreement with the available ATLAS and CMS data. In addition, we have calculated the top-quark charge asymmetry assuming several typical cuts on the top-pair invariant mass $M_{t\bar{t}}$. For example, assuming $M_{t\bar{t}}>0.5 ~ {\rm TeV}$ and $\mu_f=\mu^{\rm init}_r =m_t$, we obtain $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 7 TeV;PMC}=2.67\%$, $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 8 TeV;PMC}=2.39\%$, and $A_{\rm C}|_{\rm 14 TeV;PMC}=1.28\%$., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Discussion improved

In ongoing and upcoming hadron collider experiments, top quark physics will play an important role in testing the Standard Model and its possible extensions. In this work we present analytic results for the differential cross sections of top quark pair production in hadronic collisions at next-to-leading order in the QCD coupling, keeping the full dependence on the spins of the top quarks. These results are combined with the corresponding next-to-leading order results for the decay of polarized top quarks into dilepton, lepton plus jets, and all jets final states. As an application we predict double differential angular distributions which are due to the QCD-induced top quark spin correlations in the intermediate state. In addition to the analytic results, we give numerical results in terms of fit functions that can easily be used in an experimental analysis., Comment: 58 pages, 12 figures

We present results for the differential distributions of jets from non-leptonic decays of polarized top quarks within the Standard Model, including QCD radiative corrections. Our work extends existing results which are only available for semileptonic top quark decays at the parton level. For $t(\uparrow)$ -> b-jet + 2 light jets we compute in particular the QCD-corrected top-spin analysing power of the b-quark jet and the least energetic light jet. The dependence of the results on the choice of the jet recombination scheme is found to be small. In addition we compute the spin analysing power of the thrust axis. Our results constitute a so far missing ingredient to analyse top quark production and subsequent non-leptonic decay at next-to-leading order in alpha_s, keeping the full information on the top quark polarization., 11 pages

The uncertainty of $t\bar{t}$ production cross section measurement at LHC is at a-few-percent level which still allows the stop pair production $\tilde{t}\tilde{t}^{*}$ with identical final states $2b+\ell+nj+{E}_{T}$. In this paper, we attempt to use the existing measurement of $W$-polarization in top quark decay to improve the distinction between stop and top quark states. We apply the ATLAS $\chi^2$ method of $W$-polarization measurement in semi-leptonic $t\bar{t}$ final state to semi-leptonic stop pair samples and study its prediction. We find that the faked top events from stop mostly contribute to the left-handed polarized $W$ due to the reconstruction. The benchmark point with maximal contribution to top events only changes $F_{L}$ by 1%. After comparing with the current experiments, we conclude that the current measurement of $W$-polarization in $t$ decay cannot exclude the light stop scenario., Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, a short version, conclusion unchanged, reference added

We consider extensions of the standard model with fourth generation fermions (SM4) in which extra symmetries are introduced such that the transitions between the fourth generation fermions and the ones in the first three generations are forbidden. In these models, the stringent lower bounds on the masses of fourth generation quarks from direct searches are relaxed, and the lightest fourth neutrino is allowed to be stable and light enough to trigger the Higgs boson invisible decay. In addition, the fourth Majorana neutrino can be a subdominant but highly detectable dark matter component. We perform a global analysis of the current LHC data on the Higgs production and decay in this type of SM4. The results show that the mass of the lightest fourth Majorana neutrino is confined in the range $\sim 41-59$ GeV. Within the allowed parameter space, the predicted effective cross-section for spin-independent DM-nucleus scattering is $\sim 3\times 10^{-48}-6\times 10^{-46} \text{cm}^{2}$, which is close to the current Xenon100 upper limit and is within the reach of the Xenon1T experiment in the near future. The predicted spin-dependent cross sections can also reach $\sim 8\times 10^{-40}\text{cm}^{2}$., arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1110.2930

We study the observability for a heavy Majorana neutrino N along with a new charged gauge boson W' at the LHC. We emphasize the complementarity of these two particles in their production and decay to unambiguously determine their properties. We show that the Majorana nature of N can be verified by the lepton-number violating like-sign dilepton process, and by polar and azimuthal angular distributions. The chirality of the W' coupling to leptons and to quarks can be determined by a polar angle distribution in the reconstructed frame and an azimuthal angle distribution., 44 pages, 17 Figures; v2 journal version

A number of top-spin observables are computed within the Standard Model (SM), at next-to-leading order in the strong and weak gauge couplings for hadronic top-quark anti-quark (ttbar) production and decay at the LHC for center-of-mass energies 7 and 8 TeV. For dileptonic final states we consider the azimuthal angle correlation, the helicity correlation, and the opening angle distribution; for lepton plus jets final states we determine distributions and asymmetries that trace a longitudinal and transverse polarization, respectively, of the t and t-bar samples. In addition, we investigate the effects of a non-zero chromo-magnetic and chromo-electric dipole moment of the top quark on these and other top-spin observables and associated asymmetries. These observables allow to disentangle the contributions from the real and imaginary parts of these moments., Comment: 22 pages, numbers of transverse top polarization corrected

We study the charged Higgs production at LHC via its associated production with top quark. The kinematic cuts are optimized to suppress the background processes so that the reconstruction of the charged Higgs and top quark is possible. The angular distributions with respect to top quark spin are explored to study the $Htb$ interaction at LHC., 10 pages,5 figures, to appear in PRD

We study the $B_C$ meson rare decay in order to search for the Majorana neutrino signal. It is found that the the corresponding decay rate is sensitive to the Majorana neutrino mass and mixing angles. The signal of $B_C^\pm\to l_1^\pm l_2^\pm M^\mp $ induced by the Majorana neutrino within the mass region $m_\pi, Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures

We compute, for top quark pair production at the Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider, the collider-independent forward-backward asymmetries defined by [Aguilar-Saavedra and Juste, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 211804 (2012).] in the standard model at next-to-leading order in QCD, including also electromagnetic and weak corrections., The work of J.A.A.S. has been supported by MICINN by projects FPA2006-05294 and FPA2010-17915, Junta de Andalucía (FQM 101, FQM 03048 and FQM 6552) and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) project CERN/FP/123619/2011. The work of W.B. was supported by DFG, SFB TR9 and that of Z.G. Si by NSFC and by Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province.

If a TeV-scale charged gauge boson (W') is discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), it will become imperative to determine its chiral couplings to standard model (SM) fermions in order to learn about the underlying theory containing the W'. We describe the reconstruction of the t, b decay mode of the W' at the LHC, and identify various kinematic observables such as the angular distributions of the top quark and the lepton resulting from top decay that can be used to disentangle the chiral couplings of the W' to SM fermions. We demonstrate by presenting analytical expressions, numerical simulations, as well as intuitive illustrations for these observables at the LHC that among the SM fermions, the polarized top quark can most directly probe the chirality of such couplings., Comment: 35 pages, 12 Figures

We briefly review the hadronization pictures adopted in the LUND String Fragmentation Model(LSFM), Webber Cluster Fragmentation Model(WCFM) and Quark Combination Model(QCM), respectively. Predictions of hadron multiplicity, baryon to meson ratios and baryon-antibaryon flavor correlations, especially related to heavy hadrons at $Z^0$ factory obtained by LSFM and QCM are reported., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures. accepted by Sci China Phys Mech Astron

We explore the \Delta L=2 same-sign dilepton signal from top-quark decay via a Majorana neutrino at the LHC in the top anti-top pair production samples. The signature is same-sign dilepton plus multi-jets with no significant missing energy. The most optimistic region lies where the Majorana neutrino mass is between 15-65 GeV. For 300 fb^-1 integrated luminosity, it is possible to probe S_{ij}, the effective mixing parameter, to order of 10^-5., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures

We explore an intriguing possibility to test the type-II seesaw mechanism of neutrino mass generation at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We show that the lepton-number-violating signatures of heavy Majorana neutrinos N_i (for i=1, 2, 3) and doubly-charged Higgs bosons H^++(H^--) can be closely correlated with each other in a class of TeV-scale type-II seesaw models. Taking the minimal version of such models for example, we calculate the cross sections of pp -> l^+_\alpha l^+_\beta X (l^-_\alpha l^-_\beta X) processes mediated separately by N_1 and H^++(H^--), and illustrate their nontrivial correlation at the LHC., Comment: RevTEX4 11 pages, 1 figure, more discussions added, published in Phys. Lett. B

We study the pair production of doubly charged Higgs bosons at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), assuming the doubly charged Higgs to be part of an SU(2)_L triplet which generates Majorana masses for left-handed neutrinos. Such pair-production has the advantage that it is not constrained by the triplet vacuum expectation value, which tends to make the single production rate rather small. We point out that, in addition to the Drell-Yan (DY) production mechanism, two-photon processes also contribute to H++H++ production at a level comparable to the QCD corrections to the DY channel. Decays of the doubly charged Higgs into both the l+l+ and W+W+ modes are studied in detail to optimize the signal observation over the backgrounds. Doubly charged scalars should be observable at the LHC with 300 fb^-1 integrated luminosity in the ll channel upto the mass range of 1 TeV even with a branching fraction of about 60 %, and in the WW channel upto a mass of 700 GeV. Such a doubly charged Higgs, if it is a member of a triplet generating neutrino masses,cannot be long-lived on the scale of collider detectors although it might lead to a displaced secondary vertex during its decay if it is lighter than about 250 GeV., revtex4, 23 pages, 14 figures, version published in Physical Review D

We study signals at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations of the electroweak gauge bosons in the framework with the Standard Model (SM) gauge and fermion fields propagating in a warped extra dimension. Such a framework addresses both the Planck-weak and flavor hierarchy problems of the SM. Unlike the often studied Z' cases, in this framework, there are three neutral gauge bosons due to the underlying SU(2)_L x SU(2)_R x U(1)_X gauge group in the bulk. Furthermore, couplings of these KK states to light quarks and leptons are suppressed, whereas those to top and bottom quarks are enhanced compared to the SM gauge couplings. Therefore, the production of light quark and lepton states is suppressed relative to other beyond the SM constructions, and the fermionic decays of these states are dominated by the top and bottom quarks, which are, though, overwhelmed by KK gluons dominantly decaying into them. However, as we emphasize in this paper, decays of these states to longitudinal W, Z and Higgs are also enhanced similarly to the case of top and bottom quarks. We show that the W, Z and Higgs final states can give significant sensitivity at the LHC to 2 (3) TeV KK scale with an integrated luminosity of 100 invfb (1 invab). Since current theoretical framework(s) favor KK masses greater than about 3 TeV, luminosity upgrade of LHC is likely to be crucial in observing these states., Comment: 43 pages

If dark matter decays to electromagnetically-interacting particles, it can inject energy into the baryonic gas and thus affect the processes of recombination and reionization. This leaves an imprint on the cosmic microwave background (CMB): the large-scale polarization is enhanced, and the small-scale temperature fluctuation is damped. We use the WMAP three-year data combined with galaxy surveys to constrain radiatively decaying dark matter. Our new limits to the dark-matter decay width are about ten times stronger than previous limits. For dark-matter lifetimes that exceed the age of the Universe, a limit of $\zeta \Gamma_{\chi} < 1.7 \times 10^{-25} s^{-1}$ (95% CL) is derived, where $\zeta$ is the efficiency of converting decay energy into ionization energy. Limits for lifetimes short compared with the age of the Universe are also derived. We forecast improvements expected from the Planck satellite., Comment: replaced with version published on PRD

The recombination history of the Universe provides a useful tool for constraining the annihilation of dark matter particles. Even a small fraction of dark matter particles annihilated during the cosmic dark age can provide sufficient energy to affect the ionization state of the baryonic gas. Although this effect is too small for neutralinos, lighter dark matter particle candidates, e.g. with mass of 1-100 MeV, which was proposed recently to explain the observed excess of positrons in the Galactic Center, may generate observable differences in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies. The annihilations at the era of recombination affects mainly the CMB anisotropy at small angular scales (large $\ell$), and is distinctively different from the effect of early reionization. We perform a multi-parameter analysis of the CMB data, including the both the WMAP first year and three year data, and the ACBAR, Boomerang, CBI, and VSA data. Assuming that the observed excess of $e^+e^-$ pairs in the galactic center region is produced by dark matter annihilation, and that a sizable fraction of the energy produced in the annihilation is deposited in the baryonic gas during recombination, we obtain a %95 dark matter mass limit of $M, version matching that appeared on PRD

In this paper we determine the weak-interaction corrections of order $\alpha_s^2\alpha$ to hadronic top-quark pair production. First we compute the one-loop weak corrections to $t \bar t$ production due to gluon fusion and the order $\alpha_s^2\alpha$ corrections to $t \bar t$ production due to (anti)quark gluon scattering in the Standard Model. With our previous result this yields the complete corrections of order $\alpha_s^2\alpha$ to $gg$, $q \bar q$, $q g$, and ${\bar q} g$ induced hadronic $t \bar t$ production with $t$ and $\bar t$ polarizations and spin-correlations fully taken into account. For the Tevatron and the LHC we determine the weak contributions to the transverse top-momentum and to the $t \bar t$ invariant mass distributions. At the LHC these corrections can be of the order of 10 percent compared with the leading-order results, for large $p_T$ and $\mtt$, respectively. Apart from parity-even $t \bar t$ spin correlations we analyze also parity-violating double and single spin asymmetries, and show how they are related if CP invariance holds. For $t$ (and $\bar t$) quarks which decay semileptonically, we compute a resulting charged-lepton forward-backward asymmetry $A_{PV}$ with respect to the $t$ ($\bar t$) direction, which is of the order of one percent at the LHC for suitable invariant-mass cuts., Comment: Latex, 27 figures, 4 tables. 1 figure and 3 references added, scale of 4 figures changed, version to appear in Phys. Rev. D

We show that the twist-2 light-cone wave-functions of eta_c and J/\psi can be factorized with nonrelativistic QCD(NRQCD) at one-loop level, where the nonperturbative effects are represented by NRQCD matrix elements. The factorization is achieved by expanding the small velocity v, which the c- or \bar c- quark moves inside a rest quarkonium with. At leading order of v the twist-2 light-cone wave-functions of eta_c and J/\psi can be factorized as the product of a perturbative function and a NRQCD matrix element. The perturbative function is calculated at one-loop level and free from any soft divergence. Our results can be used for the production of J/\psi\eta_c through e^+e^- -annihilation and of a charmonium in B-decays, which are studied in experiment of two B-factories., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures