- Accepted Paper
Enhancing the sensitivity to FCNC top decays and in the boosted regime at CLIC
Phys. Rev. D - Accepted 24 August, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/979f-zqhv
Phys. Rev. D - Accepted 24 August, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/979f-zqhv
The top quark, having the largest Yukawa coupling to the Higgs sector, provides a unique window into electroweak symmetry breaking and possible new physics beyond the Standard Model. Searches for rare top-quark processes are thus powerful probes of new physics. In this work, we investigate the flavor-changing neutral-current (FCNC) top-quark decays and , where denotes a light scalar, at the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) with a center-of-mass energy of . Our analysis focuses on a kinematic regime distinct from most previous studies, in which the top quarks are typically highly boosted. To enhance signal discrimination in the boosted regime, we construct multi-channel jet images and employ a convolutional neural network (CNN) classifier to capture jet-substructure patterns relevant to the FCNC signals. Assuming an integrated luminosity of , we obtain the expected C.L. upper limit . For the exotic scalar singlet, expected C.L. upper limits between and are obtained for , for scalar masses between and .
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