Measurement of the charge asymmetry in top-quark pair production in the lepton-plus-jets final state in $pp$ collision data at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

This paper reports inclusive and differential measurements of the $t\bar{t}$ charge asymmetry $A_{\textrm{C}}$ in 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV $pp$ collisions recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Three differential measurements are performed as a function of the invariant mass, transverse momentum and longitudinal boost of the $t\bar{t}$ system. The $t\bar{t}$ pairs are selected in the single-lepton channels ($e$ or $\mu$) with at least four jets, and a likelihood fit is used to reconstruct the $t\bar{t}$ event kinematics. A Bayesian unfolding procedure is performed to infer the asymmetry at parton level from the observed data distribution. The inclusive $t\bar{t}$ charge asymmetry is measured to be $A_{\textrm{C}} = 0.009 \pm 0.005$ (stat.$+$syst.). The inclusive and differential measurements are compatible with the values predicted by the Standard Model.