Measurement of the production and differential cross sections of W+W- bosons in association with jets in pp¯ collisions at √s = 1.96TeV

Abstract

We present a measurement of the W-boson-pair production cross section in pp¯ collisions at 1.96 TeV center-of-mass energy and the first measurement of the differential cross section as a function of jet multiplicity and leading-jet energy. The W+W- cross section is measured in the final state comprising two charged leptons and neutrinos, where either charged lepton can be an electron or a muon. Using data collected by the CDF experiment corresponding to 9.7fb-1 of integrated luminosity, a total of 3027 collision events consistent with W+W- production are observed with an estimated background contribution of 1790 ± 190 events. The measured total cross section is σ(pp¯ → W+W-)= 14.0 ± 0.6 (stat)-1.0+1.2 (syst) ± 0.8 (lumi) pb, consistent with the standard model prediction.