Measurement of the top-quark pair production cross-section in events with two leptons and bottom-quark jets using the full CDF data set

TL;DR

This paper reports a precise measurement of the top-quark pair production cross-section in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV using the full CDF Run II data set, focusing on events with two leptons and bottom-quark jets.

Contribution

It provides the most complete measurement of the top-quark pair production cross-section at the Tevatron with improved accuracy using the full CDF data set.

Findings

Measured cross section: 7.09 ± 0.84 pb

Signal purity of selected events: 91%

Results agree with standard model predictions

Abstract

We present a measurement of the top-quark pair production cross-section in proton-antiproton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=1.96 TeV. The data were collected at the Fermilab Tevatron by the CDF II detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 8.8 fb$^{-1}$, representing the complete CDF Run II data set. We select events consistent with the production of top-quark pairs by requiring the presence of two reconstructed leptons, an imbalance in the total event transverse momentum, and jets. At least one jet is required to be identified as consistent with the fragmentation of a bottom quark using a secondary-vertex-finding algorithm. The 246 candidate events are estimated to have a signal purity of 91%. We measure a cross section of $\sigma_{\ttbar}$ = 7.09 $\pm$ 0.84 pb, assuming a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV/$c^{2}$. The results are consistent with the standard model as predicted by next-to-leading-order calculations.