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Measurement of the electroweak top quark production cross section and the CKM matrix element V (tb) with the DO experiment

Abstract

dc:description

This analysis presents a measurement of the combined s+t-channel electroweak topquark production cross section at the Tevatron collider. An integrated luminosity of nearly 1 fb^{-1} of Run~II data has been analyzed. After the selection of single top quark-like events, a Multi-Process Factory hasbeen used to analyze each event under several physics process hypotheses. The novelty in this analysis is that an event is not only studied under the assumption of the signal process decay chain, but also under the assumption to originate from one of the major background physics processes. In three jet multiplicity bins a total of 13 decay chains are reconstructed and evaluated. The implementation and optimization of this technique is a first step towards analysis methods which are able to actively identify an event as a signal or background event. In this analysis the most likely decay chain of an event for each signal and background process under investigation is used to obtain decay chain dependent observables. The close connection of the observables to the partons of a physics process decay chain leads to an intuitive interpretation of the resulting distributions. Observables gained in the Multi-Process Factory are used as input to a state-of-the-art multivariate analysis technique, Boosted Decision Trees. The configuration of these Boosted Decision Trees has been optimized with the goal to maximize the separation of the expected signal contribution from the overwhelming background. Using a Bayesian approach the discriminant distributions of the twelve independent analysis channels are fitted simultaneously. This analysis measures the combined s+t channel production cross section to beegin{equation*}sigma(par{p}ightarrow tb + X, tqb + X) = 5.51^{+1.62}_{-1.31}; pbend{equation*}for a top mass of 175 GeV and assuming a Standard Model s-channel to t-channel cross section ratio of sigmas/sigmat=0.44. The significance of the cross section measurement is 4.2 standard deviations. The measured cross section value exceeds the Standard Model expectation by 2 standard deviations. The result of the analysis presented here is in good agreement with the result of $sigma(par{p}ightarrow tb + X, tqb + X) = 4.8pm 1.3; pb$, obtained from the combination of three other analyses performed on the same data set.From the cross section measurement a measurement of the strength |V_{tb} x f_1^L| of the V-A coupling at the Wtb-vertex has been extracted. The result isegin{equation*}|V_{tb}imes f_1^L| = 1.42^{+0.21}_{-0.20}.end{equation*}This value is above the Standard Model expectation by about 2~standard deviations. The measurement agrees within uncertainties with the measurement of |V_{tb} x f_1^L| = 1.31^{+0.25}_{-0.21} obtained by another analysisperformed on the same data set.Constraining the prior of this measurement to the interval [0,1], i.e. setting the strength of the left-handed coupling f_1^L=1, a result for the CKM~matrix element |V_{tb}| has been determined toegin{equation*}|V_{tb}| = 1.00^{+0.00}_{-0.08}.end{equation*}From the posterior probability density of this measurement a lower limit for |V_{tb}| has been set at 95% confidence level:egin{equation*}|V_{tb}|>0.79; @; 95\%; C.L.end{equation*}

Degree

thesis:*
Grantor dc:publisher
Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University
Year dc:date
2009

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Kirsch, Matthias
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Erdmann, Martin

Subjects

dc:subject × 9

Rights

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Statement dc:rights
  • info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Language dc:language
eng

Identifiers

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Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
RWTH Aachen University
Base URL
publications.rwth-aachen.de/oai2d
Last updated
2026-07-30
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Kirsch, Matthias. Measurement of the electroweak top quark production cross section and the CKM matrix element V (tb) with the DO experiment. Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University, 2009. https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/51120