English

Toponia at the HL-LHC and FCC-ee

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-05-28 v4 High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

The hint of a pseudoscalar toponium state at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) opens a new avenue for studying a novel class of QCD (quasi-)bound states with comparable formation and decay times. Compared with charmonium and bottomonium, toponium is a quasi-bound state, resembling a hydrogen atom of the strong interaction, although it appears as a broader resonance. We compute the masses and annihilation decay widths of the lowest SS-wave (ηt\eta_t, ψt\psi_t) and PP-wave (χt0\chi_{t0}, χt1\chi_{t1}) toponium states, and assess their discovery prospects at the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) and future lepton colliders, such as the e+ee^+e^- stage of the Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee). Detecting the vector ψt\psi_t state at the HL-LHC is hindered by the Landau-Yang theorem and the gluon-dominated production environment of the collider, whereas lepton colliders offer promising sensitivity through both constituent and two-body decays. A more precise measurement of the ηt\eta_t mass, approximately equal to that of ψt\psi_t, at the LHC could help determine the optimal ttˉt\bar{t} threshold center-of-mass energy for FCC-ee. The PP-wave states remain challenging to observe at both the HL-LHC and future lepton colliders. We also discuss how toponium measurements can be used to probe top-quark properties and to conduct indirect searches for new physics, including light scalars that couple to the top quark.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.14552,
  title  = {Toponia at the HL-LHC and FCC-ee},
  author = {Yang Bai and Ting-Kuo Chen and Yiming Yang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.14552},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

38 pages, 9 figures, 9 tables, matches to published version