Measurement of the cross section for W-boson production in association with jets in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a measurement of the W-boson production cross section with associated jets in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV, providing data to compare with theoretical predictions at different orders.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed measurement of W+jets cross sections at Tevatron energies, including differential and total cross sections for multiple jet multiplicities.

Findings

Measured cross sections for W+1 to 4 jets

Comparison with leading and next-to-leading order predictions

Data consistent with theoretical models within uncertainties

Abstract

We present a measurement of the cross section for W-boson production in association with jets in pbar-p collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV. The analysis uses a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 320 pb^-1 collected with the CDF II detector. W bosons are identified in their electron decay channel and jets are reconstructed using a cone algorithm. For each W+>= n-jet sample (n= 1 - 4) we measure dsigma(ppbar =>W+>=n-jet)/dE_T^(nth-jet) x BR(W => e nu) with respect to the transverse energy E_T of the n^th-highest E_T jet above 20 GeV, and the total cross section sigma(ppbar =>W+>=n-jet; E_T^(nth-jet)>25 GeV) x BR(W => e nu), for a restricted W => e nu decay phase space. The cross sections, corrected for all detector effects, can be directly compared to particle level W+ jet(s) predictions. We present here comparisons to leading order and next-to-leading order predictions.