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Observation of Exclusive Electron-Positron Production in Hadron-Hadron Collisions

CDF Collaboration

hep-exarXiv:hep-ex/0611040

Abstract

We present the first observation of exclusive e+e- production in hadron-hadron collisions, using pp collision data at s=1.96 TeV taken by the Run II Collider Detector at Fermilab, and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 532 pb-1. We require the absence of any particle signatures in the detector except for an electron and a positron candidate, each with transverse energy ET>5 GeV and pseudorapidity |η|<2. With these criteria, 16 events are observed compared to a background expectation of 1.90.3 events. These events are consistent in cross section and properties with the QED process pp p + e+e- + p through two-photon exchange. The measured cross section is 1.6+0.5-0.3(stat)0.3(syst) pb. This agrees with the theoretical prediction of 1.71 0.01 pb.

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