Measurement of z boson transverse momentum in proton - anti-proton collisions at √s = 1.96 TeV

This dissertation describes a measurement of the shape of the boson transverse momentum distribution in p{bar p} {yields} Z/{gamma}* {yields} e{sup +}e{sup -} + X events at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The measurement is made for events with electron-positron mass between 70 < M{sub ee} < 110 GeV/c{sup 2} and uses 976 pb{sup -1} of data collected at the Fermilab Tevatron collider with the D0 detector. The shape is measured both for the inclusive sample and for the subset of events containing a boson with large rapidity. The large-rapidity distribution shows better agreement with theory when the calculation is done using traditional Collins-Soper-Sterman resummation than when using a recent resummed form factor with modifications in the small-x region.