Measurement of the top quark pair production cross section in the lepton plus jets channel in proton-antiproton collisions at root s=1.96 TeV

Abstract

We present a measurement of the inclusive top quark pair production cross section in p (p) over bar collisions at root s = 1.96 TeV utilizing data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.3 fb(-1) collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We consider final states containing one high-p(T) isolated electron or muon and at least two jets, and we perform three analyses: one exploiting specific kinematic features of t (t) over bar events, the second using b-jet identification, and the third using both techniques to separate the t (t) over bar signal from the background. In the third case, we determine simultaneously the t (t) over bar cross section and the ratio of the production rates of W + heavy flavor jets and W + light flavor jets, which reduces the impact of the systematic uncertainties related to the background estimation. Assuming a top quark mass of 172.5 GeV, we obtain sigma(t (t) over bar) = 7.78(-0.64)(-0.77)pb. This result agrees with predictions of the standard model.