Measurement of the Top Quark Pair Production Cross Section in pbar-p Collisions Using Multijet Final States

TL;DR

This paper measures the top quark pair production cross section in proton-antiproton collisions using multijet final states and neural network optimization, providing results consistent with previous measurements and Standard Model predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a neural network-based analysis optimized for multijet final states to measure the top quark pair production cross section.

Findings

Measured cross section: 7.1 +/- 2.8(stat) +/- 1.5(syst.) pb

Combined cross section with previous data: 5.9 +/- 1.2(stat) +/- 1.1(syst.) pb

Analysis achieves minimized fractional uncertainty using neural networks.

Abstract

We have studied tbar-t production using multijet final states in pbar-p collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.8 TeV, with an integrated luminosity of 110.3 pb(-1). Each of the top quarks with these final states decays exclusively to a bottom quark and a W boson, with the W bosons decaying into quark-antiquark pairs. The analysis has been optimized using neural networks to achieve the smallest expected fractional uncertainty on the tbar-t production cross section, and yields a cross section of 7.1 +/- 2.8(stat.) +/- 1.5(syst.) pb, assuming a top quark mass of 172.1 GeV/c^(2). Combining this result with previous D0 measurements, where one or both of the W bosons decay leptonically, gives a tbar t production cross section of 5.9 +/- 1.2(stat) +/- 1.1(syst) pb.