Measurement of the cross section of top quark-antiquark pair production in association with a W boson in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports the most precise measurement to date of the production cross section of top quark-antiquark pairs in association with a W boson at 13 TeV, using CMS data and advanced neural network techniques.

Contribution

It provides the first high-precision measurement of tt̄W production cross sections and their ratio, employing neural networks and categorization methods for improved accuracy.

Findings

Measured inclusive cross section: 868 ± 40 (stat) ± 51 (syst) fb.

Measured tt̄W+ and tt̄W− cross sections: 553 ± 30 (stat) ± 30 (syst) fb and 343 ± 26 (stat) ± 25 (syst) fb.

Results agree with Standard Model predictions within two standard deviations.

Abstract

The production of a top quark-antiquark pair in association with a W boson is measured in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC correspond to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Events with two or three leptons (electrons and muons) and additional jets are selected. In events with two leptons, a multiclass neural network is used to distinguish between events from the signal and background processes. Events with three leptons are categorised based on the number of jets, number of b-tagged jets, and the lepton charges. An inclusive production cross section of $868 \pm 40 \, \text{(stat)}\pm 51 \, \text{(syst) fb}$ is measured. The cross sections of top quark-antiquark pair production with a W$^+$ and a W$^-$ boson are measured as $553 \pm 30 \, \text{(stat)} \pm 30 \, \text{(syst) fb}$ and $343 \pm 26 \, \text{(stat)} \pm 25 \, \text{(syst) fb}$, respectively, and thecorresponding ratio of the two cross sections is found to be $1.61 \pm 0.15 \, \text{(stat)}^{+0.07}_{-0.05} \, \text{(syst)}$. The results are in agreement with the standard model predictions within two standard deviations, and represent the most precise measurements of this production process to date.