Search for High Mass Top Quark Production in p anti-p Collisions at S**(1/2) = 1.8 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for high-mass top quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.8 TeV, analyzing multiple decay channels and observing an excess of events that suggests a top quark production cross section around 8 pb.

Contribution

First search to analyze top quark production at this energy with multiple decay channels and tagging methods, providing new cross section estimates.

Findings

Observed 9 events with expected background 3.8

Estimated top quark production cross section of 8.2 pb

Indications of top quark presence at Tevatron energies

Abstract

We present new results on the search for the top quark in p anti-p collisions at S**(1/2) = 1.8 TeV with an integrated luminosity of 13.5 +- 1.6 pb**(-1). We have considered t anti-t production in the Standard Model using electron and muon dilepton decay channels (t anti-t -> e mu + jets, e e + jets, and mu mu + jets) and single-lepton decay channels (t anti-t -> e + jets and mu + jets) with and without tagging of b quark jets. From all channels, we have 9 events with an expected background of 3.8 +- 0.9. If we assume that the excess is due to t anti-t production, and assuming a top mass of 180 GeV/c**2, we obtain a cross section of 8.2 +- 5.1 pb.