Top quarks, axigluons and charge asymmetries at hadron colliders

Abstract

Axigluons are colored heavy neutral gauge bosons that couple to quarks through an axial vector current and the same strong coupling as gluons. The most important model-independent manifestation of axigluons is the generation of a forward–backward asymmetry in top-antitop quark production at p[overline p] collisions, which originates from the charge asymmetry. We update our previous analysis for the inclusive QCD induced forward–backward asymmetry and define a new observable that is more sensitive to the effect than the forward–backward asymmetry. Furthermore, we find a lower limit of 1.2 TeV at 90% C.L. on the axigluon mass from recent measurements of the asymmetry at Tevatron. Also at LHC, the charge asymmetry is sizable in suitably selected samples. We evaluate this asymmetry in the central region for different selection cuts and show that, like at Tevatron, the charge asymmetry can probe larger values of the axigluon mass than the dijet mass distribution.