Paper detail

Top-antitop resonance searches beyond 1 TeV

We perform a general parton level analysis for the search of heavy resonant states in the production of top-antitop pairs at the LHC with an integrated luminosity of 30 fb^-1. We assume the existence of resonances that only couple to quarks and propose kinematic cuts in order to increase the amount of events produced through quark-annihilation. We study the interplay between different variables and their impact on the purity of the selected sample. We make focus on the longitudinal ($β$) and transverse ($p_T$) momentum of the top-antitop pair, and the scattering angle ($θ$) in the center of mass reference frame. We observe that $β$ is replaced by $θ$ as a suitable discriminating variable of quark-annihilation processes for invariant masses above 1 TeV. Finally, we illustrate the analysis with a gluon resonance of 1.5 TeV and show the improvement in the sensitivity of the signal when cuts on $θ$ are imposed.