Measurement of W boson Helicity in Top Quark Decay

Abstract

We present a measurement of the helicity of the W boson produced in top quark decays using \ttbar ~decays in the $\ell+$jets and dilepton final states selected from a sample of 5.4 fb$^{-1}$ of collisions recorded using the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron \ppbar\ collider. We measure the fractions of longitudinal and right-handed $W$ bosons to be $f_0 = 0.669 \pm 0.078 \hbox{(stat.)} \pm 0.065 \hbox{(syst.)}$ and $f_+ = 0.023 \pm 0.041 \hbox{(stat.)} \pm 0.034 \hbox{(syst.)}$, respectively. This result is consistent at the 98% level with the standard model. A measurement with $f_0$ fixed to the value from the standard model yields $f_+ = 0.010 \pm 0.022 \hbox{(stat.)} \pm 0.030 \hbox{(syst.).