Search for W' bosons decaying to an electron and a neutrino with the D0 detector

Understand

This Letter describes the search for a new heavy charged gauge boson W' decaying into an electron and a neutrino.

• The data were collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron proton-antiproton Collider at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of about 1 inverse femtobarn.
• Lacking any significant excess in the data in comparison with known processes, an upper limit is set on the production cross section times branching fraction, and a W' boson with mass below 1.00 TeV can be excluded at the 95% C.L., assuming standard-model-like couplings to fermions.
• This result significantly improves upon previous limits, and is the most stringent to date.