Measurement of the Top-antitop Production Cross Section in pp Collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV using the Kinematic Properties of Events with Leptons and Jets

TL;DR

This paper reports a measurement of the top-antitop production cross section in proton-proton collisions at 7 TeV using CMS detector data, focusing on events with leptons and jets to distinguish signal from background.

Contribution

It introduces a method to measure the top-antitop cross section at 7 TeV using kinematic properties of leptonic and hadronic final states with CMS data.

Findings

Measured cross section: 173 +39 -32 pb

Results are consistent with Standard Model predictions

Used event kinematics to separate signal from background

Abstract

A measurement of the top-antitop production cross section in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV has been performed at the LHC with the CMS detector. The analysis uses a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 inverse picobarns and is based on the reconstruction of the final state with one isolated, high transverse-momentum electron or muon and three or more hadronic jets. The kinematic properties of the events are used to separate the top-antitop signal from W+jets and QCD multijet background events. The measured cross section is 173 + 39 - 32 (stat. + syst.) pb, consistent with standard model expectations.