Measurement of top quark-antiquark pair production in association with a W or Z boson in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports the measurement of top quark-antiquark pair production associated with W or Z bosons at 8 TeV, using CMS data, providing results consistent with the Standard Model within uncertainties.

Contribution

First measurement of t tbar W and Z production cross sections in multiple leptonic channels at 8 TeV with CMS, combining results for improved significance.

Findings

Measured t tbar W cross section: 170 +90/-80 fb

Measured t tbar Z cross section: 200 +80/-70 fb

Observed combined t tbar V process with 3.7 sigma significance

Abstract

A measurement of the cross section for the production of top quark-antiquark pairs (t tbar) in association with a vector boson V (W or Z) in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV is presented. The results are based on a dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 inverse femtobarns recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC. The measurement is performed in three leptonic (e and mu) channels: a same-sign dilepton analysis targeting t tbar W events, and trilepton and four-lepton analyses designed for t tbar Z events. In the same-sign dilepton channel, the t tbar W cross section is measured as sigma[t tbar W] = 170 +90/-80 (stat) +/- 70 (syst) fb, corresponding to a significance of 1.6 standard deviations over the background-only hypothesis. Combining the trilepton and four-lepton channels, a direct measurement of the t tbar Z cross section, sigma[t tbar Z] = 200 +80/-70 (stat) +40/-30 (syst) fb, is obtained with a significance of 3.1 standard deviations. The measured cross sections are compatible with standard model predictions within their experimental uncertainties. The inclusive t tbar V process is observed with a significance of 3.7 standard deviations from the combination of all three leptonic channels.