Top quark and leptonic charge asymmetries for the Tevatron and LHC

Abstract

We compute, for $t \bar t$ production at the LHC and at the Tevatron, several charge asymmetries to NLO QCD, including also the electromagnetic and weak-interaction corrections. We calculate these asymmetries both inclusively and with additional kinematic cuts and compare our results, where possible, with recent experimental results and with SM predictions. The $t \bar t$ asymmetries induce also corresponding asymmetries for the charged leptons from semileptonic top-quark decay. Although these asymmetries are, in the SM, smaller than the corresponding ones for top quarks, they are expected to be measurable quite precisely. In fact, measurement of a lepton asymmetry in $\ell$ + jets events was reported by the D$\emptyset$ and CDF experiments. We analyze and compute to NLO in the gauge couplings leptonic charge asymmetries for dileptonic and semileptonic $\ttbar$ events, with and without acceptance cuts, at the Tevatron and the LHC.