Measurement of the High-Mass Drell-Yan Cross Section and Limits on Quark-Electron Compositeness Scales

TL;DR

This paper measures the high-mass Drell-Yan cross section in proton-antiproton collisions and sets limits on quark-electron compositeness scales, finding no deviation from the Standard Model within the analyzed energy range.

Contribution

It provides the first measurement of the high-mass Drell-Yan cross section at Tevatron energies and establishes new lower limits on quark-electron compositeness scales.

Findings

No deviation from Standard Model observed.

Limits on compositeness scale between 3.3 TeV and 6.1 TeV.

Data consistent with existing theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We present a measurement of the Drell-Yan cross section at high dielectron invariant mass using 120/pb of data collected in pbar-p collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV by the D0 collaboration during 1992-96. No deviation from standard model expectations is observed. We use the data to set limits on the energy scale of quark-electron compositeness with common constituents. The 95% confidence level lower limits on the compositeness scale vary between 3.3 TeV and 6.1 TeV depending on the assumed form of the effective contact interaction.