Calculation of W b bbar Production via Double Parton Scattering at the LHC

Abstract

We investigate the potential to observe double parton scattering at the Large Hadron Collider in p p -> W b bbar X -> l nu b bbar X at 7 TeV. Our analysis tests the efficacy of several kinematic variables in isolating the double parton process of interest from the single parton process and relevant backgrounds for the first 10 inverse fb of integrated luminosity. These variables are constructed to expose the independent nature of the two subprocesses in double parton scattering, pp -> l nu X and pp -> b bbar X. We use next-to-leading order perturbative predictions for the double parton and single parton scattering components of W b bbar and for the pertinent backgrounds. The next-to-leading order contributions are important for a proper description of some of the observables we compute. We find that the double parton process can be identified and measured with significance S/sqrt(B) ~ 10, provided the double parton scattering effective cross section sigma_{eff} ~ 12 mb.