t \bar{t} W production and decay at NLO

TL;DR

This paper calculates the next-to-leading order production and decay of top-antitop pairs with a W-boson, highlighting its importance as a Standard Model background in new physics searches involving same-sign leptons.

Contribution

The authors implemented NLO calculations of t t̄ W production with full decay and spin correlations into MCFM, providing a detailed analysis of NLO effects on same-sign lepton signals.

Findings

NLO corrections significantly affect the cross section estimates.

The process is a relevant background in searches for new physics.

Implementation into MCFM enables more accurate simulations.

Abstract

We present results for the production of a top pair in association with a W-boson at next-to-leading order. We have implemented this process into the parton-level integrator MCFM including the decays of both the top quarks and the W-bosons with full spin correlations. Although the cross section for this process is small, it is a Standard Model source of same-sign lepton events that must be accounted for in many new physics searches. For a particular analysis of same-sign lepton events in which b-quarks are also present, we investigate the effect of the NLO corrections as a function of the signal region cuts.