Accessing CKM suppressed top decays at the LHC

Abstract

We propose an extension of the existing experimental strategy for measuring branching fractions of top quark decays, targeting specifically t\to j_q W t → j q W , where j_q j q is a light quark jet. The improved strategy uses orthogonal b b - and q q -taggers, and adds a new observable, the number of light-quark-tagged jets, to the already commonly used observable, the fraction of b b -tagged jets in an event. Careful inclusion of the additional complementary observable significantly increases the expected statistical power of the analysis, with the possibility of excluding |V_{tb}|=1 | V t b | = 1 at 95\% 95 % C.L. at the HL-LHC, and accessing directly the standard model value of |V_{td}|^2+|V_{ts}|^2 | V t d | 2 + | V t s | 2 .