Theory HEP Seminar

Tracking down the top quark forward backward asymmetry

Peter Winslow

TRIUMF

In this talk, I will discuss the top quark forward asymmetry. In particular, I will try to give a present snap-shot of the theoretical and experimental status of the asymmetry and some of my past and present work to understand the underlying physics causing it. I will discuss an interesting possible connection between the asymmetry and the B meson sector in which a certain class of phenomenologically motivated models may also provide an explanation for a long-standing tension between measurements of the CKM matrix element Vub. Furthermore, the discovery of atomic parity violation as a strong constraint on this class of models has motivated us to explore a new path for explaining the asymmetry which also predicts novel new collider signatures that can be searched for at the LHC.