Full quantum tomography of top quark decays

Abstract

Quantum tomography in high-energy physics processes has usually been restricted to the spin degrees of freedom. We address the case of top quark decays $t\to Wb$, in which the orbital angular momentum ($L$) and the spins of $W$ and $b$ are intertwined into a 54-dimensional $LWb$ density operator. The entanglement between $L$ and the $W$ or $b$ spin is large and could be determined for decays of single top quarks produced at the Large Hadron Collider with Run 2 data. With the foreseen statistical and systematic uncertainties, the significance is well above $5\sigma$ from the separability hypothesis for $L$-$W$ entanglement, and $3.2\sigma$ for $L$-$b$. These would be the first entanglement measurements between orbital and spin angular momenta in high-energy physics. Likewise, the genuine tripartite entanglement between $L$ and the two spins could be established with more than $5\sigma$. The method presented paves the way for similar measurements in other processes.

Comments: LaTeX 14 pages. Added systematics and discussions. Final version in PLB