Measurement of the Cross Section for $t\bar{t}$ Production in $p\bar{p}$ Collisions using the Kinematics of Lepton+Jets Events

TL;DR

This paper reports a measurement of the top quark pair production cross section in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV using neural networks to analyze lepton+jets events, resulting in a cross section of 6.6 pb.

Contribution

It introduces an artificial neural network method to distinguish top pair events from background in lepton+jets data at the Tevatron.

Findings

Measured top pair production cross section: 6.6 pb

Used neural network for event discrimination

Analyzed 519 lepton+jets events

Abstract

We present a measurement of the top pair production cross section in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=1.96 TeV. We collect a data sample with an integrated luminosity of 194$\pm$11 pb$^{-1}$ with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. We use an artificial neural network technique to discriminate between top pair production and background processes in a sample of 519 lepton+jets events, which have one isolated energetic charged lepton, large missing transverse energy and at least three energetic jets. We measure the top pair production cross section to be $\sigma_{t\bar{t}}= 6.6$$\pm 1.1 \pm 1.5$ pb, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic.