Top observables as precise probes of the ALP

Abstract

Measurements of the top quark by the ATLAS and CMS experiments go beyond testing the Standard Model (SM) with high precision. Axion-like particles (ALPs), a potential SM extension involving new pseudoscalar particles, exhibit strong interactions with heavy SM fermions. Consequently, they can significantly affect the kinematic distributions of top quarks in top-antitop pair production. Moreover, such strong interactions can induce other ALP couplings at low energies, leading to a rich phenomenology. We summarize recent developments in probing the ALP-top coupling and use LHC data from run 2 to constrain the ALP parameter space.

Comments: 7 pages, 4 figures. Talk at the 17th International Workshop on Top Quark Physics (Top2024), 22-27 September 2024