Decoupling or nondecoupling: Is that theRbquestion?

1996

The top quark is well known for the nondecoupling effects it implies in ρ and Rb. The recent experimental Rb data exhibits a disagreement with the SM prediction at more than the 3σ level. It is tempting to explore whether this might be due to nondecoupling New Physics effects, opposite to those of the top. We investigate this issue in the context of models with an extra family of right or left handed, singlet or doublet quarks. It is shown that, contrary to what