Measurement of the WW Production Cross Section in pp̅ Collisions at √s = 1.96 TeV

Authors

V. M. Abazov, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
Gregory R. Snow, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
D0 Collaboration

Date of this Version

4-22-2005

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 151801 (2005). http://prl.aps.org. Copyright © 2005 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

We present a measurement of the W boson pair-production cross section in pp̅ collisions at a center-of- mass energy of √s = 1.96 TeV. The data, collected with the Run II D0 detector at Fermilab, correspond to an integrated luminosity of 224–252 pb^-1 depending on the final state (ℯℯ, ℯμ, or μμ). We observe 25 candidates with a background expectation of 8.1 ± 0.6(stat) ± 0.6(syst) ± 0.5(lum) events. The probability for an upward fluctuation of the background to produce the observed signal is 2.3 x 10^-7, equivalent to 5.2 standard deviations. The measurement yields a cross section of 13.8_-3.8^+4.3 (stat)_-0.9^+1.2 (syst) ± 0.9(lum) pb, in agreement with predictions from the standard model.