Can We Observe Weak Anomalous Couplings of Heavy Quarks Through Three Jet Events?

Abstract

The rates and corresponding jet distributions for the decay $Z\to b\bar bg$ and the process $e^+e^-\to t\bar tg$ may be sensitive to anomalous dipole-like couplings of heavy quarks to the photon and $Z$. In the $b$-quark case, after updating our previous analysis on the constraints imposed by current experiments on $Zb\bar b$ anomalous couplings, we show that the variation of these couplings within their presently allowed ranges leads to rather minor modifications to the Standard Model expectations for $Z\to b\bar bg$ observables. In the $t$-quark case, significant deviations from the Standard Model predictions for $t\bar tg$ production at the Next Linear Collider are possible.