Measuring anomalous Wtb couplings at $$e^-p$$ e - p collider

Abstract

We study the accuracy with which the lowest order CP conserving anomalous Wtb couplings in the single top-quark production at the proposed large hadron electron collider can be probed. The one-dimensional distribution of various kinematic observables at the parton level MC and their asymmetries arising due to the presence of anomalous couplings both in the hadronic and leptonic W decay is examined. We find that at 95 % CL the anomalous coupling associated with the left-handed vector current can be measured at an accuracy of the order of $$\sim $$ 10 $$^{-2}$$ –10 $$^{-3}$$ , while those associated with the right-handed vector and left- as well as right-handed tensor currents have a sensitivity at the order of $$\sim $$ 10 $$^{-1}$$ –10 $$^{-2}$$ for the systematic uncertainty varying between 10–1 % at an integrated luminosity of 100 fb $$^{-1}$$ . A comprehensive analysis of the combined covariance matrix derived from all one-dimensional distributions of kinematical observables is used to compute the errors in the anomalous couplings.