Measurement of the total and differential cross-sections of $t\bar{t}W$ production in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

Measurements of inclusive and differential production cross-sections of a top-quark-top-antiquark pair in association with a $W$ boson ($t\bar{t}W$) are presented. They are performed by targeting final states with two same-sign or three isolated leptons (electrons or muons) and are based on $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV proton-proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb$^{-1}$, recorded from 2015 to 2018 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The inclusive $t\bar{t}W$ production cross-section is measured to be $880 \pm 80$ fb, compared to a reference theoretical prediction of $745 \pm 50\,\textrm{(scale)} \pm 13\,\textrm{(2-loop approx.)} \pm 19\,\textrm{(PDF,} \alpha_{\textrm{S}})$ fb. Differential cross-section measurements characterise this process in detail for the first time. Several particle-level observables are compared with a variety of theoretical predictions, which generally agree well with the normalised differential cross-section results. Additionally, the relative charge asymmetry of $t\bar{t}W^{+}$ and $t\bar{t}W^{-}$ is measured inclusively to be ${A_{\mathrm{C}}^{\mathrm{rel}}} = 0.33 \pm 0.05$, in very good agreement with the theoretical prediction of $0.322 \pm 0.003\,\mathrm{(scale)} \pm 0.007\,\mathrm{(PDF)}$, as well as differentially.