Prospects for discovery of single production of vector-like top quarks with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The project focuses on studying the expected sensitivity of discovery or exclusion of vector-like top quarks $T$ produced singly at the LHC in the decay channel $T \rightarrow tZ$, with $Z \rightarrow \nu \overline{\nu}$ and $t \rightarrow e^{+} \nu_{e} b$. An integrated luminosity of 36 fb$^{-1}$ at $\sqrt[]{s}$ = 13 TeV is assumed for this study, corresponding to the dataset collected by the ATLAS experiment during 2015 and 2016. For that purpose Monte Carlo simulations are used for signal and Standard Model background processes. After identifying the most sensitive variables for the signal and background discrimination the signal region is established and then a cut based analysis is performed to compute the expected exclusion limits. At the 95\% confidence level, the product of the cross section and branching fraction of the considered channel is excluded above values in the range 0.331-0.157 pb for T quark masses within 0.7-1.4 TeV. The expected exclusion limits are also compared to several models for vector-like top production for different couplings of the $WbT$ production vertex.