Exotic vertolike quark phenomenology in the minimal linear σ model

Extensions of the Standard Model that include vectorlike quarks commonly also include additional particles that may mediate new production or decay modes. Using the minimal linear σ model as an example, which reduces to the minimal SO (5)/SO (4) composite Higgs model in a specific limit, we consider the phenomenology of vectorlike quarks when a scalar singlet σ is present. This new particle may be produced in the decays T → tσ, B → bσ, where T and B are vectorlike quarks of charges 2/3 and −1/3, respectively, with the subsequent decay σ → W+W−, ZZ, hh. By scanning over the allowed parameter space we find that these decays may be dominant. In addition, we find that the presence of several new particles allows for single T production cross sections larger than those expected in minimal models. We discuss the observability of these new signatures in existing searchesThe authors acknowledge partial financial support by the Spanish MINECO through the Centro de excelencia Severo Ochoa Program under Grant No. SEV2016-0597. J. A. G., L. M. and J. A. A. S. acknowledge partial financial support by the Spanish “Agencia Estatal de Investigación” (AEI) and the EU “Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional” (FEDER) through the Projects No. FPA2016-78645-P and No. FPA2016-78220-C3-1-P. L. M. acknowledges partial financial support by the Spanish MINECO through the “Ramón y Cajal” programme (RYC-2015-17173). J. M. N. acknowledges support from the Ramón y Cajal Fellowship Contract No. RYC-2017-22986 and from the Spanish Proyectos de I + D de Generación de Conocimiento via Grant No. PGC2018-096646-A-I00. L. M. and J. M. N. also acknowledge support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant agreements No. 690575 (RISE InvisiblesPlus) and No. 674896 (ITN ELUSIVES