Single top quark production as a probe for anomalous moments at hadron colliders

Single production of top quarks at hadron colliders via gW fusion is examined as a probe of possible anomalous chromomagnetic and/or chromoelectric moment type couplings between the top quark and gluons. We find that this channel is far less sensitive to the existence of anomalous couplings of this kind than is the usual production of top quark pairs by gg or q bar q fusion. The contribution to the cross section and various kinematical distributions from anomalous couplings with interesting magnitudes is essentially hidden by the present theoretical uncertainties in the calculation. This result is found to hold at both the Fermilab Tevatron as well as the CERN LHC, although somewhat greater sensitivity for anomalous couplings in this channel is found at the higher energy machine. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society