Search for leptonic charge asymmetry in t(t)over-barW production in final states with three leptons at ?s=13 TeV

Abstract

A search for the leptonic charge asymmetry (A(c)(l)) of top-quark-antiquark pair production in association with a W boson (t (t) over barW) is presented. The search is performed using final states with exactly three charged light leptons (electrons or muons) and is based on root s = 13TeV proton-proton collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN during the years 2015-2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1). A profile-likelihood fit to the event yields in multiple regions corresponding to positive and negative differences between the pseudorapidities of the charged leptons from top-quark and top-antiquark decays is used to extract the charge asymmetry. At reconstruction level, the asymmetry is found to be -0.12 +/- 0.14 (stat.) +/- 0.05 (syst.). An unfolding procedure is applied to convert the result at reconstruction level into a charge-asymmetry value in a fiducial volume at particle level with the result of -0.11 +/- 0.17 (stat.) +/- 0.05 (syst.). The Standard Model expectations for these two observables are calculated using Monte Carlo simulations with next-to-leading-order plus parton shower precision in quantum chromodynamics and including next-to-leading-order electroweak corrections. They are -0.084(-0.003)(+0.005) (scale) +/- 0.006 (MC stat.) and -0.063(-0.004)(+0.007) (scale) +/- 0.004 (MC stat.) respectively, and in agreement with the measurements.