Speaker
Description
Vector-like top partners are a common feature of composite Higgs and Little Higgs models, where they help with the hierarchy problem. Traditional top partners decay primarily into electroweak channels: $t h$, $t Z$, and $b W$. The LHC places lower limits for top partner masses of around 1.1-1.4 TeV from pair production searches, under the assumption of these traditional decay modes. In our model, we introduce a top partner with a dark U(1) charge which, for dark photon masses much smaller than the Z mass, leads generically to a "maverick" top partner with substantial branching ratios to the dark sector channels $t \gamma_d$ and $t h_2$. By largely avoiding the electroweak decay modes, existing top partner searches are much less constraining, and sub-TeV top partners are reopened.
