Eur. Phys. J. C (2007) 50: 519-533
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-007-0289-4

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Probing anomalous Wtb couplings in top pair decays

¹ Departamento de Física Teórica y del Cosmos and CAFPE, Universidad de Granada, Campus de Fuentenueva, Edificio Mecenas, 18071, Granada, Spain
² LIP – Departamento de Física, Universidade de Coimbra, 3004-516, Coimbra, Portugal
³ UCP, Rua Dr. Mendes Pinheiro 24, 3080, Figueira da Foz, Portugal

^* e-mail: jaas@ugr.es

Received: 4 September 2006
Revised: 19 December 2006
Published online: 5 April 2007

Abstract

We investigate several quantities, defined in the decays of top quark pairs, which can be used to explore non-standard Wtb interactions. Two new angular asymmetries are introduced in the leptonic decay of top (anti)quarks. Both are very sensitive to anomalous Wtb couplings, and their measurement allows for a precise determination of the W helicity fractions. We also examine other angular and energy asymmetries, the W helicity fractions and their ratios, as well as spin correlation asymmetries, analysing their dependence on anomalous Wtb couplings and identifing the quantities which are most sensitive to them. It is explicitly shown that spin correlation asymmetries are less sensitive to new interactions in the decay of the top quark; therefore, when combined with the measurement of other observables, they can be used to determine the tt̄ spin correlation even in the presence of anomalous Wtb couplings. We finally discuss some asymmetries which can be used to test CP violation in tt̄ production and complex phases in the effective Wtb vertex.