Enhancing the sensitivity to New Physics in the top-antitop invariant mass distribution

Abstract

We propose selection cuts on the LHC top-antitop production sample which should enhance the sensitivity to New Physics signals in the study of the top-antitop invariant mass distribution. We show that selecting events in which the top-antitop object has little transverse and large longitudinal momentum enlarges the quark-fusion fraction of the sample and therefore increases its sensitivity to New Physics which couples to quarks and not to gluons. We find that systematic error bars play a fundamental role and assume a simple model for them. We check how a non-visible new particle would become visible after the selection cuts enhance its resonance bump. A final realistic analysis should be done by the experimental groups with a correct evaluation of the systematic error bars.