Direct measurement of the W Boson width in ppover collisions at square roots = 1.96 TeV

Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Feb 22;100(7):071801. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.071801. Epub 2008 Feb 19.

Abstract

A direct measurement of the total decay width of the W boson Gamma(W) is presented using 350 pb(-1) of data from pp[over ] collisions at square root s = 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. The width is determined by normalizing predicted signal and background distributions to 230 185 W candidates decaying to enu and micronu in the transverse-mass region 50<M(T)<90 GeV and then fitting the predicted shape to 6055 events in the high-M(T) region, 90<M(T)<200 GeV. The result is Gamma(W)=2032 +/- 45(stat)+/-57(syst) MeV, consistent with the standard model expectation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.