On the W+4 jets background to the top quark asymmetry at the Tevatron

TL;DR

This paper explores whether the W+4 jets background could explain the unexpectedly large top-antitop charge asymmetry observed at the Tevatron, suggesting it may be a significant source of the anomaly.

Contribution

It demonstrates through simulation that the W+4 jets background can produce a large forward-backward asymmetry in reconstructed top-antitop candidates, challenging previous assumptions.

Findings

W+4 jets background can mimic large asymmetry in top-antitop events

Reconstructed tar{t} candidates from background show significant asymmetry

Distributions of reconstructed systems differ from QCD tar{t} events at high invariant mass

Abstract

We investigate the possibility that the W+4 jets background is a source of the anomalously large top-antitop (t\={t}) charge asymmetry observed at the Tevatron. We simulate the t\={t} reconstruction of the signal and background events at the matrix-element level and find that the reconstructed t\={t} candidates from the W +4 jets background could give large forward-backward asymmetry. We suggest serious re-evaluation of the W+4 jets background for the t\={t} candidate events by studying the distributions of the reconstructed t\={t} systems in their rapidity difference, the transverse momentum of the top quark, and that of the t\={t} system, which can differ significantly from those of the QCD t\={t} production events especially at high t\={t} invariant mass.