Angular correlations in single-top-quark and Wjj production at next-to-leading order

Abstract

I demonstrate that the correlated angular distributions of final-state particles in both single-top-quark production and the dominant Wjj backgrounds can be reliably predicted. Using these fully-correlated angular distributions, I propose a set of cuts that can improve the single-top-quark discovery significance by 25%, and the signal to background ratio by a factor of 3 with very little theoretical uncertainty. Up to a subtlety in t-channel single-top-quark production, leading-order matrix elements are shown to be sufficient to reproduce the next-to-leading order correlated distributions.