Measurement of the mass difference between t and t¯ quarks

Abstract

We present a direct measurement of the mass difference between t and t quarks using t t candidate events in the lepton þ jets channel, collected with the CDF II detector at Fermilab’s 1.96 TeV Tevatron pp Collider. We make an event by event estimate of the mass difference to construct templates for top quark pair signal events and background events. The resulting mass difference distribution of data is compared to templates of signals and background using a maximum likelihood fit. From a sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5:6 fb 1, we measure a mass difference, Mtop ¼ Mt M t ¼ 3:3 1:4ðstatÞ 1:0ðsystÞ GeV=c2, approximately 2 standard deviations away from the CPT hypothesis of zero mass difference.