Search for single-production of vector-like quarks decaying into $Wb$ in the fully hadronic final state in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

A search for $T$ and $Y$ vector-like quarks produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $13\,\text{TeV}$ and decaying into $Wb$ in the fully hadronic final state is presented. The search uses 139 fb$^{-1}$ of data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC from 2015 to 2018. The final state is characterised by a hadronically decaying $W$ boson with large Lorentz boost and a $b$-tagged jet, which are used to reconstruct the invariant mass of the vector-like quark candidate. The main background is QCD multijet production, which is estimated using a data-driven method. Upon finding no significant excess in data, mass limits at 95% confidence level are obtained as a function of the global coupling parameter, $\kappa$. The observed lower limits on the masses of $Y$ quarks with $\kappa = 0.5$ and $\kappa = 0.7$ are 2.0 TeV and 2.4 TeV, respectively. For $T$ quarks, the observed mass limits are 1.4 TeV for $\kappa = 0.5$ and 1.9 TeV for $\kappa = 0.7$.