Study of ttbar Production in ppbar Collisions Using Total Transverse Energy

TL;DR

This paper investigates top-antitop quark pair production in proton-antiproton collisions by analyzing the total transverse energy distribution, revealing significant deviations from background expectations and supporting the presence of ttbar events.

Contribution

It introduces a simple kinematic variable 'H' to distinguish ttbar production and demonstrates its effectiveness in identifying top quark signals at Fermilab.

Findings

'H' distribution deviates from background by 3.8 standard deviations for certain events.

The data aligns with a model combining background and ttbar events at a top mass of 180 GeV/c^2.

Results support the presence of ttbar production consistent with the Standard Model.

Abstract

We analyze a sample of W + jet events collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV to study ttbar production. We employ a simple kinematical variable "H", defined as the scalar sum of the transverse energies of the lepton, neutrino and jets. For events with a W boson and four or more jets, the shape of the "H" distribution deviates by 3.8 standard deviations from that expected from known backgrounds to ttbar production. However this distribution agrees well with a linear combination of background and ttbar events, the agreement being best for a top mass of 180 GeV/c^2.