Search for Flavor Changing Neutral Currents in t → Hc , H → ττ Decay at the LHC

Xin Chen 2 and Li-Gang Xia Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing 100084, China The prospects of searching for the flavor changing neutral current effect in the decay of t → Hc,H → ττ are investigated with the simulated p− p collision data for the ATLAS detector at the LHC, where the Higgs mass is assumed to be 125 GeV. A fit based on the constraints from the Higgs mass and the tau decay kinematics is performed for each event, which improves significantly the Higgs and top mass reconstruction and helps the signal-background separation. Boosted Decision Trees discriminants are developed to achieve an optimal sensitivity of searching for the FCNC signal. An expected upper limit of the branching ratio B(t→ Hc) at 95% confidence level of 0.25% is obtained with a data set of 100 fb−1 at √ s = 13 TeV during the LHC Run-2 period.