Search for flavor-changing neutral currents in top quark decays t → Hc and t → Hu in multilepton final states in proton-proton collisions at root s =13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

Flavor-changing neutral currents are not present in the Standard Model at tree level and are suppressed in loop processes by the unitarity of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix; the corresponding rates for top quark decay processes are experimentally unobservable. Extensions of the Standard Model can generate new flavor-changing neutral current processes, leading to signals which, if observed, would be unambiguous evidence of new interactions. A data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1 of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used to search for top quarks decaying to up or charm quarks with the emission of a Higgs boson, with subsequent Higgs boson decay to final states with at least one electron or muon. No signal is observed and limits on the branching fractions B (t → Hc) < 0.16% and B (t → Hu) < 0.19% at 95% confidence level are obtained (with expected limits of 0.15% in both cases).