Inclusive and differential cross-section measurements in tW with CMS in Run 3

TL;DR

This paper reports the first measurements of inclusive and differential cross sections for single top quark production with a W boson at 13.6 TeV, using CMS data from 2022, showing agreement with the Standard Model.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental measurements of tW production cross sections at 13.6 TeV, including differential distributions unfolded to particle level.

Findings

Measured inclusive cross section: 84.1 pb with uncertainties.

Differential distributions agree with NLO QCD predictions.

Results are consistent with Standard Model expectations.

Abstract

The first measurements of the inclusive and normalised differential cross sections for the production of single top quarks in association with a W boson in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13.6 TeV are presented. The data used were recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC during 2022, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 34.7 $\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$. The analysed events contain one muon and one electron in the final state. A cross section of $84.1\pm 2.1(\mathrm{stat})\,^{+9.8}_{-10.2}(\mathrm{syst})\pm 3.3(\mathrm{lumi})$ pb is obtained, consistent with the predictions of the standard model. For the differential measurements, a fiducial region is defined according to the detector acceptance. The resulting differential distributions are unfolded to particle level showing good agreement with the predictions at next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics.