A search is presented for particle dark matter produced in association with a pair of top quarks in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The data were collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. This search requires the presence of one lepton, multiple jets, and large missing transverse energy. No excess of events is found above the SM expectation, and upper limits are derived on the production cross section. Interpreting the findings in the context of a scalar contact interaction between fermionic dark matter particles and top quarks, lower limits on the interaction scale are set. These limits are also interpreted in terms of the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross sections for the spin-independent scalar operator and they complement direct searches for dark matter particles in the low mass region.
Systematic uncertainties from various sources and their impact on the total background prediction.
Expected number of background events in the SR, expected number of signal events for a DM particle with the mass $M_{\chi}$ = 1 GeV, assuming an interaction scale $M_{*}$ = 100 GeV, and observed data. The statistical and systematic uncertainties are given on the expected yields.
Expected number of signal events in SR assuming an interaction scale $M_{*}$ = 100 GeV, signal efficiencies, and observed and expected limits at 90% CL on production cross sections for $\mathrm{pp \rightarrow t\bar{t} + \chi\bar{\chi}}$, for various DM particle masses.