New Physics from High Energy Tops

Precision measurements of high energy top quarks at the LHC constitute a powerful probe of new physics. We study the effect of four fermion operators involving two tops and two light quarks on the high energy tail of the $t\bar t$ invariant mass distribution. We use existing measurements at a center of mass energy of 13 TeV, and state of the art calculations of the Standard Model contribution, to derive bounds on the coefficients of these operators. We estimate the projected reach of the LHC at higher luminosities and discuss the validity of these limits within the Effective Field Theory description. We find that current measurements constrain the mass scale of these operators to be larger than about 1-2 TeV, while we project that future LHC data will be sensitive to mass scales of about 3-4 TeV. We apply our bounds to constrain composite Higgs models with partial compositeness and models with approximate flavor symmetries. We find our limits to be most relevant to flavor non-universal models with a moderately large coupling of the heavy new physics states to third generation quarks.