Andrej Saibel

In order to stimulate new engagement and trigger some concrete studies in areas where further work would be beneficial towards fully understanding the physics potential of an $e^+e^-$ Higgs / Top / Electroweak factory, we propose to define a set of focus topics. The general reasoning and the proposed topics are described in this document.

The International Linear Collider (ILC) will allow the precise study of $e^{-}e^{+}\rightarrow q\bar{q}$ interactions at different center-of-mass energies from the $Z$-pole to 1 TeV. In this paper, we discuss the experimental prospects for measuring differential observables in $e^{-}e^{+}\rightarrow b\bar{b}$ and $e^{-}e^{+}\rightarrow c\bar{c}$ at the ILC baseline energies, 250 and 500 GeV. The study is based on full simulation and reconstruction of the International Large Detector (ILD) concept. Two gauge-Higgs unification models predicting new high-mass resonances beyond the Standard Model are discussed. These models predict sizable deviations of the forward-backward observables at the ILC running above the $Z$ mass and with longitudinally polarized electron and positron beams. The ability of the ILC to probe these models via high-precision measurements of the forward-backward asymmetry is discussed. Alternative scenarios at other energies and beam polarization schemes are also discussed, extrapolating the estimated uncertainties from the two baseline scenarios.

A bstract A search for new top quark interactions is performed within the framework of an effective field theory using the associated production of either one or two top quarks with a Z boson in multilepton final states. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb − 1 of proton-proton collisions at $$ \sqrt{s} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msqrt> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> </mml:msqrt> </mml:math> = 13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Five dimension-six operators modifying the electroweak interactions of the top quark are considered. Novel machine-learning techniques are used to enhance the sensitivity to effects arising from these operators. Distributions used for the signal extraction are parameterized in terms of Wilson coefficients describing the interaction strengths of the operators. All five Wilson coefficients are simultaneously fit to data and 95% confidence level intervals are computed. All results are consistent with the SM expectations.

This note presents Monte Carlo generator comparisons of the ttbb and ttW processes at particle level. The aim is to compare the modelling of important backgrounds to ttH measurements in multi-lepton final states and in the ttH(H->bb) decay channel and the treatment of the associated theory uncertainties for a combination of the full Run-2 ttH results from ATLAS and CMS. As a first step, modelling and theory uncertainties as used in ATLAS an CMS are compared in the relevant analysis regions. Significant differences in the treatment of systematic uncertainties between the experiments have been observed in ttbb and ttW. As a first step, ATLAS and CMS agreed on a common reference value of the inclusive ttW cross section to allow direct comparisons between experiments.

We study the impact of the top quark mass renormalized in the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ scheme on the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}\text{H}$ production cross-sections as an alternative to theory predictions with the conventionally used pole mass scheme. The differential cross-sections at next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD with stable top quarks show a moderate decrease in scale uncertainties for the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ mass renormalization scheme compared to the on-shell one. The shape of the differential distributions is not affected much, the largest differences being observed in the invariant mass distributions of the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}$ and the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}\text{H}$ systems.

We study the impact of the top quark mass renormalized in the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ scheme on the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}\text{H}$ production cross-sections as an alternative to theory predictions with the conventionally used pole mass scheme. The differential cross-sections at next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD with stable top quarks show a moderate decrease in scale uncertainties for the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ mass renormalization scheme compared to the on-shell one. The shape of the differential distributions is not affected much, the largest differences being observed in the invariant mass distributions of the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}$ and the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}\text{H}$ systems.

We study the impact of the top quark mass renormalized in the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ scheme on the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}\text{H}$ production cross-sections as an alternative to theory predictions with the conventionally used pole mass scheme. The differential cross-sections at next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD with stable top quarks show a moderate decrease in scale uncertainties for the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ mass renormalization scheme compared to the on-shell one. The shape of the differential distributions is not affected much, the largest differences being observed in the invariant mass distributions of the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}$ and the $\text{t}\bar{\text{t}}\text{H}$ systems.