First measurement of the cross section for top-quark pair production in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV

Abstract

The first measurement of the cross section for top-quark pair production in pp collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at center-of-mass energy root s = 7 TeV has been performed using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.1 +/- 0.3 pb(-1) recorded by the CMS detector. This result utilizes the final state with two isolated, highly energetic charged leptons, large missing transverse energy, and two or more jets. Backgrounds from Drell-Yan and non-W/Z boson production are estimated from data. Eleven events are observed in the data with 2.1 +/- 1.0 events expected from background. The measured cross section is 194 +/- 72(stat.) +/- 24(syst.) +/- 21(lumi.) pb, consistent with next-to-leading order predictions. (C) 2010 CERN. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.