Vector-Like Top Quark Production via an Electroweak Dipole Moment at a Muon Collider

Vectorial partners of the Standard Model quarks and leptons are predicted in many dynamical models of electroweak symmetry breaking. The most easily accessible of these new particles, either due to mass or couplings, are typically expected to be the partners of the third-generation fermions. It is therefore essential to explore the signatures of these particles at future high-energy colliders. We study the potential of a high-energy muon collider to singly produce a vector-like top-quark partner via an electroweak dipole moment operator, such an operator being typical of composite constructions beyond the Standard Model. We use a phenomenological model for third-generation quarks and their partners that satisfies an extended custodial symmetry. This automatically protects the $W$-boson and $Z$-boson masses from receiving large electroweak corrections, and it allows the model to be viable given current electroweak data. We demonstrate that cross sections associated with dipole-induced vector-like quark production can easily exceed those inherent to more conventional single-production modes via ordinary electroweak couplings. We then explore the associated phenomenology, and we show that at least one (and often more than one) of the extra vector-like states can be studied at high-energy muon colliders. Typical accessible masses are found to range up to close to the kinematic production threshold, when the vector-like partners are produced in combination with an ordinary top quark.