Work

Statistical indications of toponium formation in top quark pair production

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: We present an analysis of six differential cross-section measurements of top-quark pair production in the dilepton channel from the ATLAS and CMS experiments. The data are compared to state-of-the-art QCD predictions with and without the inclusion of toponium formation effects. This contribution is modelled via a re-weighting of fixed-order matrix elements using the Green’s function of the non-relativistic QCD Hamiltonian, and we employ a statistical model to quantify the preference of the data for the toponium hypothesis. All observables yield Bayes factors larger than unity, with two exceeding 20, yielding strong evidence for the toponium hypothesis in top-quark pair production at the LHC.

Source: Physics Letters B

DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140179

Authors: Benjamin Fuks, Aminul Hossain, James Keaveney

Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Sorbonne Université, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Hautes Energies, University of Cape Town, University College Dublin

Language: English

Topic: Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies

Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: Agence Nationale de la Recherche, University of Cape Town

Award: Search for Dark Matter with Long Lived Particles at the LHC