Abstract
This Letter presents a normalized differential cross-section measurement in a fiducial phase-space region where interference effects between top-quark pair production and associated production of a single top quark with a π boson and a π-quark are significant. Events with exactly two leptons (πβ’π, πβ’π, or πβ’π) and two π-tagged jets that satisfy a multiparticle invariant mass requirement are selected from 36.1ββfbβ1 of proton-proton collision data taken at βπ =13ββTeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015 and 2016. The results are compared with predictions from simulations using various strategies for the interference. The standard prescriptions for interference modeling are significantly different from each other but are within 2β’π of the data. State-of-the-art predictions that naturally incorporate interference effects provide the best description of the data in the measured region of phase space most sensitive to these effects. These results provide an important constraint on interference models and will guide future model development and tuning.