Searching the inclusive ℓγE̸T+b-quark signature for radiative top quark decay and non-standard-model processes

Abstract

We compare the inclusive production of events containing a lepton (ℓ), a photon (γ), significant transverse momentum imbalance (E̸T), and a jet identified as containing a b-quark, to SM predictions. The search uses data produced in proton-antiproton collisions at √s=1.96 TeV corresponding to 1.9 fb-1 of integrated luminosity taken with the CDF detector. We find 28 ℓγbE̸T events versus an expectation of 31.0-3.5+4.1 events. If we further require events to contain at least three jets and large total transverse energy, the largest SM source is radiative top-quark pair production, tt̅ +γ. In the data we observe 16 tt̅ γ candidate events versus an expectation from SM sources of 11.2-2.1+2.3. Assuming the difference between the observed number and the predicted non-top-quark total of 6.8-2.0+2.2 is due to SM top-quark production, we estimate the tt̅ γ cross section to be 0.15±0.08 pb.