Measuring $|V_{ts}|$ directly using strange-quark tagging at the LHC

The Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) element $V_{ts}$, representing the coupling between the top and strange quarks, is currently best determined through fits based on the unitarity of the CKM matrix, and measured indirectly through box-diagram oscillations, and loop-mediated rare decays of the $B$ or $K$ mesons. It has been previously proposed to use the tree level decay of the $t$ quark to the $s$ quark to determine $|V_{ts}|$ at the LHC, which has become a top factory. In this paper, we extend the proposal by performing a detailed analysis of measuring $t \to sW$ in dileptonic $t\bar{t}$ events. In particular, we perform detector response simulation, including the reconstruction of $K_S$, which are used for tagging jets produced by $s$ quarks against the dominant $t \to bW$ decay. We show that it should be possible to exclude $|V_{ts}| = 0$ at 6.0$σ$ with the expected High Luminosity LHC luminosity of 3000 fb$^{-1}$.

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