# Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of $W$ bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

## TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of W boson production cross-sections and charge asymmetry in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV, providing data that can distinguish between different theoretical predictions and parton distribution functions.

## Contribution

It presents the first high-precision measurements of W boson charge asymmetry and cross-sections at 8 TeV, testing and constraining theoretical models and PDFs.

## Key findings

- Cross-section measurement precision between 0.8% and 1.5%.
- Charge asymmetry measured with an uncertainty of 0.002 to 0.003.
- Results can discriminate between different NNLO predictions and PDFs.

## Abstract

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of $20.2~\mbox{fb$^{-1}$}$. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.