1209.1062 (CMS Collaboration)

Combined search for the quarks of a sequential fourth generation    [PDF]

CMS Collaboration

Results are presented from a search for a fourth generation of quarks produced singly or in pairs in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2011. A novel strategy has been developed for a combined search for quarks of the up- and down-type in decay channels with at least one isolated muon or electron. Limits on the mass of the fourth-generation quarks and the relevant CKM matrix elements are derived in the context of a simple extension of the standard model with a sequential fourth generation of fermions. The existence of mass-degenerate fourth-generation quarks with masses below 685 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for minimal off-diagonal mixing between the third- and the fourth-generation quarks. With a mass difference of 25 GeV between the quark masses, the obtained limit on the masses of the fourth-generation quarks shifts by about +/- 20 GeV. This result significantly reduces the allowed parameter space for a fourth generation of fermions.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1062