Searches for anomalous top quark-antiquark production are presented, based on pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns, were collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. The observed ttbar invariant mass spectrum is found to be compatible with the standard model prediction. Limits on the production cross section times branching fraction probe, for the first time, a region of parameter space for certain models of new physics not yet constrained by precision measurements.
A novel technique for measuring the mass of the top quark that uses only the kinematic properties of its charged decay products is presented. Top quark pair events with final states with one or two charged leptons and hadronic jets are selected from the data set of 8 TeV proton-proton collisions, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. By reconstructing secondary vertices inside the selected jets and computing the invariant mass of the system formed by the secondary vertex and an isolated lepton, an observable is constructed that is sensitive to the top quark mass that is expected to be robust against the energy scale of hadronic jets. The main theoretical systematic uncertainties, concerning the modeling of the fragmentation and hadronization of b quarks and the reconstruction of secondary vertices from the decays of b hadrons, are studied. A top quark mass of 173.68 +/- 0.20 (stat) +1.58 -0.97 (syst) GeV is measured. The overall systematic uncertainty is dominated by the uncertainty in the b quark fragmentation and the modeling of kinematic properties of the top quark.
The top quark pair production cross section is measured for the first time in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC, using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 43 inverse picobarns. The measurement is performed by analyzing events with at least one electron and one muon of opposite charge, and at least two jets. The measured cross section is 746 +/- 58 (stat) +/- 53 (syst) +/- 36 (lumi) pb, in agreement with the expectation from the standard model.
The normalised differential top quark-antiquark production cross section is measured as a function of the jet multiplicity in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV at the LHC with the CMS detector. The measurement is performed in both the dilepton and lepton + jets decay channels using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 inverse femtobarns. Using a procedure to associate jets to decay products of the top quarks, the differential cross section of the t t-bar production is determined as a function of the additional jet multiplicity in the lepton + jets channel. Furthermore, the fraction of events with no additional jets is measured in the dilepton channel, as a function of the threshold on the jet transverse momentum. The measurements are compared with predictions from perturbative quantum chromodynamics and no significant deviations are observed.
The t t-bar charge asymmetry is measured in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The data, collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC, correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. Selected events contain an electron or a muon and four or more jets, where at least one jet is identified as originating from b-quark hadronization. The inclusive charge asymmetry is found to be 0.0010 +/- 0.0068 (stat) +/- 0.0037 (syst). In addition, differential charge asymmetries as a function of rapidity, transverse momentum, and invariant mass of the t t-bar system are studied. For the first time at the LHC, the measurements are also performed in a reduced fiducial phase space of top quark pair production, with an integrated result of -0.0035 +/- 0.0072 (stat) +/- 0.0031 (syst). All measurements are consistent within two standard deviations with zero asymmetry as well as with the predictions of the standard model.
The normalized differential cross section for top quark pair (tt-bar) production is measured in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV at the CERN LHC using the CMS detector in data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. The measurements are performed in the lepton + jets (e/mu + jets) and in the dilepton (e+e-, mu+mu-, and e+-mu-+) decay channels. The tt-bar cross section is measured as a function of the kinematic properties of the charged leptons, the jets associated to b quarks, the top quarks, and the tt-bar system. The data are compared with several predictions from perturbative quantum chromodynamics up to approximate next-to-next-to-leading-order precision. No significant deviations are observed relative to the standard model predictions.
The charge asymmetry in t t-bar events is measured using dilepton final states produced in pp collisions at the LHC at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The data sample, collected with the CMS detector, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 inverse femtobarns. The measurements are performed using events with two oppositely charged leptons (electrons or muons) and two or more jets, where at least one of the jets is identified as originating from a bottom quark. The charge asymmetry is measured from differences in kinematic distributions, unfolded to the parton level, of positively and negatively charged top quarks and leptons. The t t-bar and leptonic charge asymmetries are found to be 0.011 +/- 0.011 (stat) +/- 0.007 (syst) and 0.003 +/- 0.006 (stat) +/- 0.003 (syst), respectively. These results, as well as charge asymmetry measurements made as a function of the invariant mass, rapidity, and transverse momentum of the t t-bar system, are in agreement with predictions of the standard model.
The ratio of the top-quark branching fractions $R = B(t \to Wb)/B(t \to Wq)$, where the denominator includes the sum over all down-type quarks (q = b, s, d), is measured in the $t\bar{t}$ dilepton final state with proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV from an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse-femtobarns, collected with the CMS detector. In order to quantify the purity of the signal sample, the cross section is measured by fitting the observed jet multiplicity, thereby constraining the signal and background contributions. By counting the number of b jets per event, an unconstrained value of R = 1.014 $\pm$ 0.003 (stat) $\pm$ 0.032 (syst) is measured, in good agreement with the standard model prediction. A lower limit R greater than 0.955 at the 95% confidence level is obtained after requiring R lower than one, and a lower limit on the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element |$V_tb$| greater than 0.975 is set at 95% confidence level. The result is combined with a previous CMS measurement of the t-channel single-top-quark cross section to determine the top-quark total decay width, $\Gamma_t$ = 1.36 $\pm$ 0.02 (stat)$^{+0.14}_{-0.11}$ (syst) GeV.
A first measurement of the top quark mass using the decay channel t to (W to l nu) (b to J/psi + X to mu+ mu- + X) is presented. The analysis uses events selected from the proton-proton collisions recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns, with 666 t t-bar and single top quark candidate events containing a reconstructed J/psi candidate decaying into an oppositely-charged muon pair. The mass of the (J/psi + l) system, where l is an electron or a muon from W boson decay, is used to extract a top quark mass of 173.5 +/- 3.0 (stat) +/- 0.9 (syst) GeV.
Measurements of normalized differential cross-sections for top-quark pair production are presented as a~function of the top-quark transverse momentum, and of the mass, transverse momentum, and rapidity of the $t\bar{t}$ system, in proton--proton collisions at a~center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb$^{-1}$, recorded in 2011 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in the lepton+jets channel, requiring exactly one lepton and at least four jets with at least one of the jets tagged as originating from a~$b$-quark. The measured spectra are corrected for detector efficiency and resolution effects and are compared to several Monte Carlo simulations and theory calculations. The results are in fair agreement with the predictions in a~wide kinematic range. Nevertheless, data distributions are softer than predicted for higher values of the mass of the $t\bar{t}$ system and of the top-quark transverse momentum. The measurements can also discriminate among different sets of parton distribution functions.