Measurement of the t anti-t Production Cross Section in p anti-p Collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96 TeV using Missing E(t) + jets Events with Secondary Vertex b-Tagging

TL;DR

This paper measures the top-antitop production cross section in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV using missing transverse energy and jets, without explicit lepton identification, to include tau decays.

Contribution

It presents the first measurement of t anti-t production cross section using a method that does not require explicit lepton identification, enhancing sensitivity to tau decays.

Findings

Measured cross section: 5.8 +/- 1.2 pb

Method maintains sensitivity to W --> tau nu decays

Results agree with standard model predictions

Abstract

We present a measurement of the t anti-t production cross section in p anti-p collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96 TeV which uses events with an inclusive signature of significant missing transverse energy and jets. This is the first measurement which makes no explicit lepton identification requirements, so that sensitivity to W --> tau nu decays is maintained. Heavy flavor jets from top quark decay are identified with a secondary vertex tagging algorithm. From 311 pb-1 of data collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab we measure a production cross section of 5.8 +/- 1.2(stat.)+0.9_-0.7(syst.) pb for a top quark mass of 178 GeV/c2, in agreement with previous determinations and standard model predictions.