Observation of Single Top Quark Production at the Tevatron Collider

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observation of single top quark production at the Tevatron, confirming the Standard Model prediction with high statistical significance through independent analyses by two collaborations.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental observation of single top quark production, demonstrating the effectiveness of independent search strategies at the Tevatron.

Findings

Measured cross section consistent with Standard Model

Achieved 5.0 sigma significance in observation

Set a lower limit on |V_tb| without unitarity assumption

Abstract

On March 4, 2009, the DZero and CDF collaborations at Fermilab's Tevatron Collider submitted papers to Physical Review Letters announcing observation of single top quark production. This review paper describes the successful searches carried out independently by the two collaborations, allowing the reader to see the similarities and differences that led to the simultaneous discoveries. Both collaborations measured a cross section sigma(ppbar->tb+X,tqb+X) consistent with the standard model prediction at 5.0 standard deviation significance, and set a lower limit on the quark mixing matrix element |V_tb| without assuming matrix unitarity with three quark generations.