Measurement of the $t\bar{t}Z$ Production Cross Section in the Final State with Three Charged Leptons using 36.1 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ Collisions at 13 TeV at the ATLAS Detector

TL;DR

This paper reports a precise measurement of the $t\bar{t}Z$ production cross section in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV using the ATLAS detector, achieving high significance and consistency with the Standard Model.

Contribution

It introduces a new analysis channel with three charged leptons, increasing the sensitivity of $t\bar{t}Z$ measurements at the LHC.

Findings

Measured cross section: 966 fb with uncertainties

Observed significance: 7.2 standard deviations

Most sensitive analysis channel to date

Abstract

A measurement of the production cross section for a top quark pair in association with a $Z$ boson ($t\bar{t}Z$) is presented in this PhD thesis. Final states with exactly three charged leptons (electrons or muons) are used, taking into account the decay of the top quark pair in the lepton+jets channel and the decay of the $Z$ boson into two charged leptons. The dataset used for this analysis corresponds to 36.1 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, recorded during 2015 and 2016 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The result of a profile likelihood fit to the event yields in four signal enriched regions and two background enriched regions is $\sigma_{t\bar{t}Z}=966^{+114}_{-102}(\text{stat.})^{+115}_{-114}(\text{syst.})$ fb. The observed (expected) significance is $7.2$ ($6.4$) standard deviations from the background-only hypothesis. Within the experimental uncertainties, the result is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction. This result is compared with two other $t\bar{t}Z$ analysis channels, using the same dataset but different lepton multiplicities. The analysis presented here is found to be the most sensitive one in terms of observed significance. The result of a combined fit of all three analysis channels is discussed. Two feasibility studies of possible future $t\bar{t}Z$ analysis techniques are demonstrated.