The Impact of Dimension-8 SMEFT Contributions: A Case Study

Abstract: The use of the SMEFT Lagrangian to quantify possible Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) effects is standard in LHC and future collider studies. One of the usual assumptions is to truncate the expansion with the dimension-$6$ operators. The numerical impact of the next terms in the series, the dimension-$8$ operators, is unknown in general. We consider a specific BSM model containing a charge-${2 3}$ heavy vector-like quark and compute the operators generated at dimension-$8$. The numerical effects of these operators are studied for the $t\bar{t}h$ process, where they contribute at tree level and we find effects at the ${\cal{O}}(0.5-2\%)$ level for allowed values of the parameters.