We report the first measurement of the cross section for Z boson pair production at a hadron collider. This result is based on a data sample corresponding to 1.9 fb-1 of integrated luminosity from ppbar collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. In the llll channel, we observe three ZZ candidates with an expected background of 0.096^{+0.092}_{-0.063} events. In the llnunu channel, we use a leading-order calculation of the relative ZZ and WW event probabilities to discriminate between signal and background. In the combination of llll and llnunu channels, we observe an excess of events with a probability of $5.1\times 10^{-6}$ to be due to the expected background. This corresponds to a significance of 4.4 standard deviations. The measured cross section is sigma(ppbar -> ZZ) = 1.4^{+0.7}_{-0.6} (stat.+syst.) pb, consistent with the standard model expectation.
We have searched for exclusive 2-photon production in proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV, using 532/pb of integrated luminosity taken by the Run II Collider Detector at Fermilab. The event signature requires two electromagnetic showers, each with transverse energy E_T > 5 GeV and pseudorapidity |eta|<1.0, with no other particles detected in the event. Three candidate events are observed. We discuss the consistency of the three events with gamma-gamma, pi0-pi0, or eta-eta production. The probability that other processes fluctuate to 3 events or more is 1.7x10^-4. An upper limit on the cross section of p+pbar --> p+gamma-gamma+pbar is set at 410 fb with 95% confidence level.
We report the measurements of the t anti-t production cross section and of the top quark mass using 1.02 fb^-1 of p anti-p data collected with the CDFII detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. We select events with six or more jets on which a number of kinematical requirements are imposed by means of a neural network algorithm. At least one of these jets must be identified as initiated by a b-quark candidate by the reconstruction of a secondary vertex. The cross section is measured to be sigma_{tt}=8.3+-1.0(stat.)+2.0-1.5(syst.)+-0.5(lumi.) pb, which is consistent with the standard model prediction. The top quark mass of 174.0+-2.2(stat.)+-4.8(syst.) GeV/c^2 is derived from a likelihood fit incorporating reconstructed mass distributions representative of signal and background.
We present the first observation of exclusive $e^+e^-$ production in hadron-hadron collisions, using $p\bar{p}$ collision data at \mbox{$\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV} taken by the Run II Collider Detector at Fermilab, and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of \mbox{532 pb$^{-1}$}. We require the absence of any particle signatures in the detector except for an electron and a positron candidate, each with transverse energy {$E_T>5$ GeV} and pseudorapidity {$|\eta|<2$}. With these criteria, 16 events are observed compared to a background expectation of {$1.9\pm0.3$} events. These events are consistent in cross section and properties with the QED process \mbox{$p\bar{p} \to p + e^+e^- + \bar{p}$} through two-photon exchange. The measured cross section is \mbox{$1.6^{+0.5}_{-0.3}\mathrm{(stat)}\pm0.3\mathrm{(syst)}$ pb}. This agrees with the theoretical prediction of {$1.71 \pm 0.01$ pb}.
We measure the ttbar production cross section in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV in the lepton+jets channel. Two complementary methods discriminate between signal and background, b-tagging and a kinematic likelihood discriminant. Based on 0.9 fb-1 of data collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, we measure sigma_ttbar=7.62+/-0.85 pb, assuming the current world average m_t=172.6 GeV. We compare our cross section measurement with theory predictions to determine a value for the top quark mass of 170+/-7 GeV.
We present a measurement of the ttbar cross section using high-multiplicity jet events produced in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV. These data were recorded at the Fermilab Tevatron collider with the D0 detector. Events with at least six jets, two of them identified as b jets, were selected from a 1 fb-1 data set. The measured cross section, assuming a top quark mass of 175 GeV/c^2, is 6.9 \pm 2.0 pb, in agreement with theoretical expectations.
We present the first model-independent measurement of the helicity of $W$ bosons produced in top quark decays, based on a 1 fb$^{-1}$ sample of candidate $t\bar{t}$ events in the dilepton and lepton plus jets channels collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ Collider. We reconstruct the angle $\theta^*$ between the momenta of the down-type fermion and the top quark in the $W$ boson rest frame for each top quark decay. A fit of the resulting \costheta distribution finds that the fraction of longitudinal $W$ bosons $f_0 = 0.425 \pm 0.166 \hbox{(stat.)} \pm 0.102 \hbox{(syst.)}$ and the fraction of right-handed $W$ bosons $f_+ = 0.119 \pm 0.090 \hbox{(stat.)} \pm 0.053 \hbox{(syst.)}$, which is consistent at the 30% C.L. with the standard model.
We present a measurement of the ttbar pair production cross section in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV utilizing approximately 425 pb-1 of data collected with the D0 detector. We consider decay channels containing two high pT charged leptons (either e or \mu) from leptonic decays of both top-daughter W bosons. These were gathered using four sets of selection criteria, three of which required that a pair of fully identified leptons (i.e., e\mu, ee, or \mu\mu) be found. The fourth approach imposed less restrictive criteria on one of the lepton candidates and required that at least one hadronic jet in each event be tagged as containing a b quark. For a top quark mass of 175 GeV, the measured cross section is 7.4 +/-1.4(stat} +/- 1.0(syst) pb.
We present a measurement of the top quark pair production cross section in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV utilizing 425 pb-1 of data collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We consider the final state of the top quark pair containing one high-pT electron or muon and at least four jets. We exploit specific kinematic features of ttbar events to extract the cross section. For a top quark mass of 175 GeV, we measure sigma_ttbar = 6.4 +1.3-1.2(stat} +/- 0.7(syst)+/- 0.4(lum) pb in good agreement with the standard model prediction.