Measurement of inclusive and differential cross sections for single top quark production in association with a W boson in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

Abstract

Measurements of the inclusive and normalised differential cross sections are presented for the production of single top quarks in association with a W boson in protonproton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data used were recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC during 2016–2018, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−¹. Events containing one electron and one muon in the final state are analysed. For the inclusive measurement, a multivariate discriminant, exploiting the kinematic properties of the events is used to separate the signal from the dominant t¯t background. A cross section of 79.2±0.9 (stat) +⁷.⁷−₈.₀ (syst) ± 1.2 (lumi) pb is obtained, consistent with the predictions of the standard model. For the differential measurements, a fiducial region is defined according to the detector acceptance, and the requirement of exactly one jet coming from the fragmentation of a bottom quark. The resulting distributions are unfolded to particle level and agree with the predictions at next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics.