Exotic decays of top partners: mind the search gap

Many standard model extensions, including composite Goldstone Higgs models, predict vector-like fermionic top-partners at the TeV scale. The intensive search programmes by ATLAS and CMS focus on decays into a 3$^{\rm rd}$ generation quark and an electroweak boson ($W,Z,h$). However, underlying models of partial compositeness contain additional states that give rise to exotic top partner decays. We consider a well-motivated scenario in which a charge-$2/3$ top-partner decays into a pseudo-scalar, $T\rightarrow t\ a$, with $a\rightarrow gg \mbox{ or } b\bar{b}$ dominating below the $t\bar{t}$ threshold. We show that the constraints on the top partner mass from QCD pair production are substantially weakened, still allowing a top partner mass as light as $400$ GeV.