Observation of Diffractive b-Quark Production at the Fermilab Tevatron

Authors

T. Affolder, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
Kenneth A. Bloom, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Collider Detector at Fermilab Collaboration

Date of this Version

1-10-2000

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 232 (2000). http://prl.aps.org. Copyright © 2000 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

We report a measurement of the fraction of b quarks produced diffractively in p̅p collisions at √s =1.8 TeV. Diffraction is identified by the absence of particles in a forward pseudorapidity region. From events with an electron of transverse momentum 9.5< p_T^e /c within the pseudorapidity region |η| < 1.1, the ratio of diffractive to total b-quark production rates is found to be R_bb= [0.62 ± 0.19(stat) ± 0.16(syst)]%. This result is comparable in magnitude to corresponding ratios for W and dijet production but significantly lower than expectations based on factorization.