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Title: Extraction of the width of the $$W$$ boson from a measurement of the ratio of the $$W$$ and $$Z$$ cross-sections

Thesis/Dissertation ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1156380· OSTI ID:1156380
 [1]
  1. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)

This dissertation reports on measurements of inclusive cross sections times branching fractions into electrons for W and Z bosons produced in pp collisions at ps = 1.8 TeV. From an integrated luminosity of 84.5 pb-1 recorded in 1994-1995 by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron, the cross sections are measured to be (p$$\bar{p}$$ → W +X) ∙ B(W → e )= 2310 ± 10 (stat) ± 50 (syst) ± 100 (lum) pb and (p$$\bar{p}$$ → Z +X) ∙ B(Z → ee)= 221 ± 3 (stat) ± 4 (syst) ± 10 (lum) pb. The cross section ratio R is determined to be (p$$\bar{p}$$ → W+X) B(W → e )= (p$$\bar{p}$$ → Z + X) ∙ B(Z → ee) = 10.43 ± 0.15 (stat) 0.20 (syst) ± 0.10 (NLO), and R is used to determine B(W → ev ) = 0.1044 ± 0.0015 (stat) ± 0.0020 (syst) 0.0017 (theory) ± 0.0010 (NLO), and W = 2.169 ± 0.031 (stat) ± 0.042 (syst) 0.041 (theory) ± 0.022 (NLO) GeV. The latter is used to set a 95% confidence level upper limit on the partial decay width of the W boson into non-standard model final states, $$inv\atop{W}$$ , of 0.213 GeV.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359
OSTI ID:
1156380
Report Number(s):
UMI-99-57149
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English