We report the first observation of diffractively produced W bosons. In a sample of W -> e nu events produced in p-barp collisions at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV, we find an excess of events with a forward rapidity gap, which is attributed to diffraction. The probability that this excess is consistent with non-diffractive production is 1.1 10^{-4} (3.8 sigma). The relatively low fraction of W+Jet events observed within this excess implies that mainly quarks from the pomeron, which mediates diffraction, participate in W production. The diffractive to non-diffractive W production ratio is found to be R_W=(1.15 +/- 0.55)%.
The ratio of the W+≥1 jet cross section to the inclusive W cross section is measured using W±→e±ν events from p¯p collisions at s=1.8TeV. The data are from 108pb−1 of integrated luminosity collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. Measurements of the cross section ratio for jet transverse energy thresholds (ETmin) ranging from 15 to 95 GeV are compared to theoretical predictions using next-to-leading-order QCD calculations. Data and theory agree well for ETmin>25GeV, where the predictions lie within 1 standard deviation of the measured values.
We have searched for the rare decay W±→π±+γ in 83 pb−1 of data taken in proton-antiproton collisions at s=1.8 TeV with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We find three events in the signal region and estimate the background to be 5.2±1.5 events. We set a 95% confidence level upper limit of 7×10−4 on the ratio of partial widths, Γ(W±→π±+γ)/Γ(W±→e±+ν).
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