Measurement of top quark polarization in tt lepton + jets final states

Authors

V. Abazov, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
Kenneth A. Bloom, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Daniel R. Claes, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Kayle DeVaughan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Aaron Dominguez, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
M. Eads, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln,Follow
Ioannis Katsanos, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Sudhir Malik, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Gregory Snow, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
M. Voutilainen, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
D0 Collaboration

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2017

Citation

PHYSICAL REVIEW D 95, 011101(R) (2017)

Comments

© 2017 American Physical Society

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.95.011101

Abstract

We present a measurement of top quark polarization in tt pair production in pp collisions at [?] = 1.96 TeV using data corresponding to 9.7 fb⁻¹ of integrated luminosity recorded with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We consider final states containing a lepton and at least three jets. The polarization is measured through the distribution of lepton angles along three axes: the beam axis, the helicity axis, and the transverse axis normal to the tt production plane. This is the first measurement of top quark polarization at the Tevatron using lepton + jet final states and the first measurement of the transverse polarization in tt production. The observed distributions are consistent with standard model predictions of nearly no polarization.