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Observation of Diffractively Produced W and Z Bosons in pbar-p Collisions at root-s = 1800 GeV

D0 collaboration, V. M. Abazov

hep-exarXiv:hep-ex/0308032

Abstract

Using the D0 detector, we have observed events produced in pbar-p collisions that contain W or Z bosons in conjunction with very little energy deposition (``rapidity gaps'') in large forward regions of the detector. The fraction of W boson events with a rapidity gap (a signature for diffraction) is 0.890.190.17%, and the probability that the non-diffractive background fluctuated to yield the observed diffractive signal is 3 x 10-14, corresponding to a significance of 7.5 sigma. The Z boson sample has a gap fraction of 1.44 0.610.52%, with a significance of 4.4 sigma. The diffractive events have very similar properties to the more common non-diffractive component.

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