Search for Flavor-Changing Neutral Current Interactions of the Top Quark and Higgs Boson in Final States with Two Photons in Proton-Proton Collisions at <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msqrt><mml:mrow><mml:mi>s</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msqrt><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn>13</mml:mn><mml:mtext> </mml:mtext><mml:mtext> </mml:mtext><mml:mi>TeV</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>
A. Tumasyan, W. Adam, J. W. Andrejkovic, T. Bergauer, S. Chatterjee, M. Dragicevic, A. Escalante Del Valle, R. Frühwirth, M. Jeitler, Natascha Krammer, L. Lechner, D. Liko, I. Mikulec, P. Paulitsch, F. M. Pitters, J. Schieck, R. Schöfbeck, D. Schwarz, S. Templ, W. Waltenberger, C.-E. Wulz, V. Chekhovsky, A. Litomin, В. Макаренко, M. R. Darwish, E. A. De Wolf, X. Janssen, T. Kello, A. Lelek, Haifa Rejeb Sfar, P. Van Mechelen, S. Van Putte, N. Van Remortel, F. Blekman, E. S. Bols, J. D’Hondt, M. Delcourt, H. El Faham, S. Lowette, S. Moortgat, A. Morton, D. Müller, A. R. Sahasransu, S. Tavernier, W. Van Doninck, P. Van Mulders, D. Beghin, B. Bilin, B. Clerbaux, G. De Lentdecker, L. Favart, A. Grebenyuk, A. K. Kalsi, K. Lee, M. Mahdavikhorrami, I. Makarenko, L. Moureaux, L. Pétré, A. Popov, N. Postiau, E. Starling, Laurent Thomas, M. Vanden Bemden, C. Vander Velde, P. Vanlaer, Liam Wezenbeek, T. Cornelis, D. Dobur, J. Knolle, Luka Lambrecht, G. Mestdach, M. Niedziela, C. Roskas, A. Samalan, K. Skovpen, M. Tytgat, B. Vermassen, Martina Vit, A. Benecke, A. Bethani, G. Bruno, F. Bury, C. Caputo, P. David, C. Delaere, I. S. Donertas, A. Giammanco, K. Jaffel, Sa. Jain, V. Lemaı̂tre, K. Mondal, J. Prisciandaro, A. Taliercio, M. Teklishyn, T. T. Tran, P. Vischia, S. Wertz, G. A. Alves, C. Hensel, A. Moraes
Abstract
Proton-proton interactions resulting in final states with two photons are studied in a search for the signature of flavor-changing neutral current interactions of top quarks (t) and Higgs bosons (H). The analysis is based on data collected at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb^{-1}. No significant excess above the background prediction is observed. Upper limits on the branching fractions (B) of the top quark decaying to a Higgs boson and an up (u) or charm (c) quark are derived through a binned fit to the diphoton invariant mass spectrum. The observed (expected) 95% confidence level upper limits are found to be 0.019% (0.031%) for B(t→Hu) and 0.073% (0.051%) for B(t→Hc). These are the strictest upper limits yet determined.