Top-quark polarisation at colliders

by Rohini Godbole

Thursday 30 Sept 2010, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

Amphi (LPSC)

In this talk I will discuss top-quark polarisation as a probe to study the SM and BSM physics at the colliders. I will show how different BSM explanations for the forward backward asymmetry at the Tevatron predict different single top quark polarisation. I will talk about different probes of top polarisation that can be constructed using decay lepton energy and angle distributions, pointing out a special feature of angular distributions which make them a particularly robust probe of polarisation. Further, I will point out a method of constructing observables which can probe polarisation asymmetries, which works also at the LHC which does not have a preferred direction. I will illustrate this with an example of a $t \bar t$ resonance at the LHC. If time is left I will also discuss the effect of anomolous $tbW$ interactions on the use of probes constructed using decay product energies, which may be relevant for heavily boosted top quarks, expected, for example, in the warped extra dimensional models.

Slides toppol_grenoble-1.pdf