W + 1 jet to W + 0 jet ratio at the Tevatron: a hint of new physics?

Abstract

We interpret the reported disagreement between the measured ratio, R10, of the W + 1 jet cross-section to the W + 0 jet cross-section at the Tevatron and the Standard Model (SM) prediction, as the effect of interactions mediated by a colour-octet analogue of the W boson, the W8. The presence of a W8 with mass (300) GeV, and with couplings to quarks and gluons of the order of electroweak strength, allows the observations of the D0 collaboration to be reproduced quite accurately. The same interaction leads to an enhancement in the dijet production rate which is well within experimental limits; in W+W− production, the enhancement is more significant and could serve as a discriminant as more statistics accumulate.