Measurement of the cross section for the production of a W boson in association with b-jets in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement is presented of the cross section for the production of a W boson with one or two jets, of which at least one must be a b-jet, in pp collisions at View the MathML sources=7 TeV. Production via top decay is not included in the signal definition. The measurement is based on 35 pb−135 pb−1 of data collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The W+bW+b-jet cross section is defined for jets reconstructed with the anti-ktkt clustering algorithm with transverse momentum above 25 GeV and rapidity within ±2.1. The b-jets are identified by reconstructing secondary vertices. The fiducial cross section is measured both for the electron and muon decay channel of the W boson and is found to be 10.2±1.9(stat)±2.6(syst) pb10.2±1.9(stat)±2.6(syst) pb for one lepton flavour. The results are compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations, which predict a cross section smaller than, though consistent with, the measured value. We are grateful to Laura Reina and Doreen Wackeroth for helpful correspondence and discussions. We thank CERN for the very successful operation of the LHC, as well as the support staff from our institutions without whom ATLAS could not be operated efficiently. We acknowledge the support of ANPCyT, Argentina; YerPhI, Armenia; ARC, Australia; BMWF, Austria; ANAS, Azerbaijan; SSTC, Belarus; CNPq and FAPESP, Brazil; NSERC, NRC and CFI, Canada; CERN; CONICYT, Chile; CAS, MOST and NSFC, China; COLCIENCIAS, Colombia; MSMT CR, MPO CR and VSC CR, Czech Republic; DNRF, DNSRC and Lundbeck Foundation, Denmark; ARTEMIS, European Union; IN2P3-CNRS, CEA-DSM/IRFU, France; GNAS, Georgia; BMBF, DFG, HGF, MPG and AvH Foundation, Germany; GSRT, Greece; ISF, MINERVA, GIF, DIP and Benoziyo Center, Israel; INFN, Italy; MEXT and JSPS, Japan; CNRST, Morocco; FOM and NWO, Netherlands; RCN, Norway; MNiSW, Poland; GRICES and FCT, Portugal; MERYS (MECTS), Romania; MES of Russia and ROSATOM, Russian Federation; JINR; MSTD, Serbia; MSSR, Slovakia; ARRS and MVZT, Slovenia; DST/NRF, South Africa; MICINN, Spain; SRC and Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden; SER, SNSF and Cantons of Bern and Geneva, Switzerland; NSC, Taiwan; TAEK, Turkey; STFC, the Royal Society and Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom; DOE and NSF, United States. The crucial computing support from all WLCG partners is acknowledged gratefully, in particular from CERN and the ATLAS Tier-1 facilities at TRIUMF (Canada), NDGF (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), CC-IN2P3 (France), KIT/GridKA (Germany), INFN-CNAF (Italy), NL