Measurement of the ratio of pp‾^→ W + c-jet cross section to the inclusive pp‾ →W + jets cross section

Abstract

We present a measurement of the fraction of inclusive W+jets events produced with net charm quantum number ± 1, denoted W+c-jet, in pp‾ collisions at →s=1.96 TeV using approximately 1 fb^-1 of data collected by the DØ detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We identify the W+jets events via the leptonic W boson decays. Candidate W+c-jet events are selected by requiring a jet containing a muon in association with a reconstructed W boson and exploiting the charge correlation between this muon and W boson decay lepton to perform a nearly model-independent background subtraction. We measure the fraction of W+c-jet events in the inclusive W+jets sample for jet pT>20 GeV and pseudorapidity |η|<2.5 to be 0.074±0.019(stat.)±^0.012_0.014, in agreement with theoretical predictions. The probability that background fluctuations could produce the observed fraction of W+c-jet events is estimated to be 2.5×^10-4, which corresponds to a 3.5s statistical significance.