Measurement of the pp¯→W+b+X production cross section at s=1.96 TeV

Abstract We present a measurement of the cross section for W boson production in association with at least one b -quark jet in proton–antiproton collisions. The measurement is made using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 6.1 fb − 1 recorded with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron p p ¯ Collider at s = 1.96 TeV . We measure an inclusive cross section of σ ( W ( → μ ν ) + b + X ) = 1.04 ± 0.05 (stat.) ± 0.12 (syst.) pb and σ ( W ( → e ν ) + b + X ) = 1.00 ± 0.04 (stat.) ± 0.12 (syst.) pb in the phase space defined by p T ν > 25 GeV , p T b - jet > 20 GeV , | η b - jet | 1.1 , and a muon (electron) with p T l > 20 GeV and | η μ | 1.7 ( | η e | 1.1 or 1.5 | η e | 2.5 ). The combined result per lepton family is σ ( W ( → l ν ) + b + X ) = 1.05 ± 0.12 ( stat. + syst. ) pb for | η l | 1.7 . The results are in agreement with predictions from next-to-leading order QCD calculations using mcfm , σ ( W + b ) ⋅ B ( W → l ν ) = 1.34 − 0.34 + 0.41 ( syst. ) pb , and also with predictions from the sherpa and madgraph Monte Carlo event generators.