$t \bar{t}$ production as a window to invisible new physics

Abstract

We present a phenomenological study where we probe the sensitivity to invisible dark matter (DM) mediators produced in association with a $t\bar{t}$ pair at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Building on previous work focused on scalar mediators, we extend the analysis to include spin-1 mediators, $Y_1$, with both vector and axial-vector couplings to top quarks. The mediator mass is fixed to 5 GeV. Signal samples of $pp \rightarrow t\bar{t}Y_i$ ($i = 0, 1$) are generated using a MadGraph5_aMC@NLO simplified DM model. Only dileptonic final states of the $t\bar{t}$ system are considered, and the reconstruction is performed through a kinematic fit without explicitly reconstructing the invisible mediator. All relevant Standard Model backgrounds are included. We consider several exclusion scenarios to assess the sensitivity to the presence of a spin-1 mediator, as well as the ability to distinguish a pure vector or axial-vector mediator from alternative hypotheses with different spin and CP properties. We find that the analysis is sensitive to light spin-1 mediators and that CP-sensitive angular observables provide discrimination power between vector, axial-vector, scalar and pseudoscalar scenarios. These results highlight the potential of $t\bar{t}$ final states not only to search for invisible particles, but also to characterize their spin and parity properties in case of discovery.