Measurement of the WW Production Cross Section in pbarp Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

THE DZERO COLLABORATION, GUSTAVO OTERO Y GARZON

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Año: 2005 p. 1518011 - 1518017

0031-9007

We present a measurement of the W boson pair-production cross section in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of  sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The data, collected with the Run II D0 detector at Fermilab, correspond to an integrated luminosity of 224–252 pb-1 depending on the final state (ee, em, or mm). We observe 25 candidates with a background expectation of 8.1 ± 0.6 (stat) ± 0.6 (syst) ± 0.5 (lum) events. The probability for an upward fluctuation of the background to produce the observed signal is 2.3 x 10-7, equivalent to 5.2 standard deviations. The measurement yields a cross section of 13.8 +4.3-3.8 (stat) +1.2-0.9 (syst) ± 0.9 (lum) pb, in agreement with predictions from the standard model.