Top Quark Studies with the first CMS Data

TL;DR

This paper reports on the initial measurements of top quark pair production at the LHC using CMS data, comparing observed event yields with Standard Model predictions.

Contribution

First CMS analysis of top quark pair production at 7 TeV, utilizing early LHC data and data-driven background estimation methods.

Findings

Observed top-antitop candidate yields are consistent with the Standard Model.

Event selection methods effectively identify top quark events.

Background processes are well-estimated using data-driven techniques.

Abstract

Studies are presented of the selection of events consistent with top quark pair production in data recorded by the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.84+/-0.09 1/pb and at center-of-mass energy sqrt{s}=7 TeV. Results are presented for the lepton+jets as well as dilepton channels. Event yields in data are compared to those in simulation, and several background processes are estimated using data-driven techniques. The observed yields of top-antitop candidate events are roughly consistent with the Standard Model.