Search for the rare decay of the W boson into a pion and a photon in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = $ 13 TeV

Bruno, Giacomo [UCL] Bury, Florian [UCL] Caputo, Claudio [UCL] David, Pieter [UCL] Delaere, Christophe [UCL] Delcourt, Martin [UCL] Donertas, Izzeddin Suat [UCL] Giammanco, Andrea [UCL] Lemaitre, Vincent [UCL] Mondal, Kuntal [UCL] Prisciandaro, Jessica [UCL] Taliercio, Angela [UCL] Teklishyn, Maksym [UCL] Vischia, Pietro [UCL] Wertz, Sébastien [UCL] Wuyckens, Sophie [UCL] et al.

A search is performed for the rare decay W$^\pm\to\pi^\pm\gamma$ in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV. Data corresponding to an on W integrated luminosity of 137 fb$^{-1}$ were collected during 2016 to 2018 with the CMS detector. This analysis exploits a novel search strategy based on W boson production in top quark pair events. An inclusive search for the W$^\pm\to\pi^\pm\gamma$ decay is not optimal at the LHC because of the high trigger thresholds. Instead, a trigger selection is exploited in which the W boson originating from one of the top quarks is used to tag the event in a leptonic decay. The W boson emerging from the other top quark is used to search for the W$^\pm\to\pi^\pm\gamma$ signature. Such decays are characterized by an isolated track pointing to a large energy deposit, and by an isolated photon of large transverse momentum. The presence of b quark jets reduces the background from the hadronization of light-flavor quarks and gluons. The W$^\pm\to\pi^\pm\gamma$ decay is not observed. An upper exclusion limit is set to this branching fraction, corresponding to 1.50 $\times$ 10$^{-5}$ at 95% confidence level, whereas the expected upper limit exclusion limit is 0.85 $^{+0.52}_{-0.29}$ $\times$ 10$^{-5}$.