Measurement of the ttbar Production Cross Section in ppbar Collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV using Kinematic Characteristics of Lepton + Jets Events

TL;DR

This paper reports a measurement of the top quark pair production cross section at 1.96 TeV using kinematic analysis of lepton+jets events, providing results consistent with the standard model.

Contribution

First measurement of ttbar cross section at Tevatron using kinematic event characteristics with detailed systematic and statistical analysis.

Findings

Measured sigma(ttbar) = 6.7 pb with uncertainties

Results agree with standard model predictions

Method utilizes event kinematics for signal extraction

Abstract

We present a measurement of the top quark pair ttbar production cross section in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV using 230 pb**{-1} of data collected by the DO detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We select events with one charged lepton (electron or muon), large missing transverse energy, and at least four jets, and extract the ttbar content of the sample based on the kinematic characteristics of the events. For a top quark mass of 175 GeV, we measure sigma(ttbar) = 6.7 {+1.4-1.3} (stat) {+1.6- 1.1} (syst) +/-0.4 (lumi) pb, in good agreement with the standard model prediction.