Postdoc interview seminar CMS-VUB: Searching for the production of a single top quark in association with a Z boson at the LHC

by Dr Alexander Morton

Thursday 9 Jan 2020, 10:30 → 11:15 Europe/Brussels

Jean Sacton Seminar room (1G003) (IIHE (ULB-VUB))

Abstract: Since the discovery of the top quark at the Tevatron in 1995, the top quark has provided unique opportunities to probe interactions at the electroweak symmetry-breaking scale (and beyond!) and the properties of individual quarks and strong interactions. The production of a single top quark in association with a Z boson (tZq) is a rare Standard Model (SM) process that is not only sensitive to the tZ coupling, but also the WWZ coupling, making tZq a unique precision probe of electroweak interactions with the top quark. Additionally, tZq production forms an irreducible background to numerous rare SMprocesses, such as tH production, and Beyond the SM physics such as Flavour Changing Neutral Currents (FCNCs). This seminar reviews the history and current status of SM tZq analyses at CMS. It will also discuss searches that have been undertaken by ATLAS and the future prospects of measurements made using different final states and those involving FCNC processes.