Search for electroweak single top quark production in 1.96 TeV proton-antiproton collisions.
Contributors: Savard, Pierre (supervisor).; Trischuk, William (supervisor).
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 128
Subjects: Physics Theses.
Description: This thesis describes the first search for electroweak single top quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The data sample used for this analysis corresponds to 162 pb -1 recorded by the upgraded Collider Detector at Fermilab. The search is performed by doing a classic maximum likelihood fit to the H T distribution in data. The kinematic variable H T is the scalar sum of transverse energies of all final state particles in the event. This variable has the advantage that its distribution looks very similar for both contributing (s-channel and t-channel) single top processes, but is different for background processes. The combination of both channels to one signal improves the sensitivity of the search. No significant evidence for electroweak single top quark production is found and we set an upper limit at the 95% confidence level on the combined single top quark production cross section of 17.8 pb.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-10, Section: B, page: 5467.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.