First measurement of W boson production in association with a single Charm quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Mar 7;100(9):091803. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.091803. Epub 2008 Mar 7.

Abstract

We present the first measurement of the production cross section of a W boson with a single charm quark (c) in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV, using soft muon tagging of c jets. In a data sample of approximately 1.8 fb(-1), recorded with the Collider Detector at Fermilab II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron, we select events with W+1 or 2 jets. We use the charge correlation between the W and the muon from the semileptonic decay of a charm hadron to extract the Wc signal. We measure sigma Wc(PTc >20 GeV/c,|eta c|<1.5) x BR(W-->l nu)=9.8+/-3.2 pb, in agreement with theoretical expectations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.