Search for Baryon Number Violating Top Quark Decays in pp Collisions at sqrt{s}=8 TeV

Abstract

A search for the decay of top quarks that violate baryon number conservation is performed using pp collisions produced by the LHC at √ s = 8 TeV [1]. The top quark decay signature considered in this analysis consists of one light lepton (electron or muon), two jets, but no neutrino in the final state. Data collected by the CMS detector [2] and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.6 fb −1 are used for the analysis. The event selection is optimised for top quarks produced in pairs, with one having the baryon-number violating decay and the other the standard model hadronic decay to three jets. No significant excess of events over the expected yields from standard model processes is observed. The upper limits at 95% confidence level on the branching fraction of the baryon-number violating top-quark decay are found to be 0.0016 and 0.0017 for the muon and the electron analyses, respectively.