Measurement of the production cross section for a W boson in association with a charm quark in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

Abstract

The strange quark content of the proton is probed through the measurement of the production cross section for a W boson and a charm (c) quark in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The analysis uses a data sample corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 138 fb${}^{-1}$ collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. The W bosons are identified through their leptonic decays to an electron or a muon, and a neutrino. Charm jets are tagged using the presence of a muon or a secondary vertex inside the jet. The W+c production cross section and the cross section ratio $R_{\text{c}}^{\pm }$ = $\sigma$(W${}^{+}$+$\bar{\text{c}}$) / $\sigma$(W${}^{-}$+$\text{c}$) are measured inclusively and differentially as functions of the transverse momentum and the pseudorapidity of the lepton originating from the W boson decay. The precision of the measurements is improved with respect to previous studies, reaching 1% in $R_{\text{c}}^{\pm }$. The precision of the measurements is improved with respect to previous studies, reaching 1% in $R_{\text{c}}^{\pm }$ = 0.950 $\pm$ 0.005 (stat) $\pm$ 0.010 (syst). The measurements are compared with theoretical predictions up to next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics.

Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at http://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/SMP-21-005 (CMS Public Pages)