Evidence for single top quark production at D0

Understand

The results of the first analysis to show evidence for production of single top quarks are presented.

• Using 0.9 fb-1 of data collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron, the analysis is performed in the electron+jets and muon+jets decay modes, taking special care in modeling the large backgrounds, applying a new powerful b-quark tagging algorithm and using three multivariate techniques to extract the small signal in the data.
• The combined measured production cross section is 4.8 +- 1.3 pb.
• The probability to measure a cross section at this value or higher in the absence of a signal is 0.027%, corresponding to a 3.5 standard deviation significance.