Measurement of W Boson Polarization in Top Quark Decay

Abstract

A measurement of the polarization of the W boson from top quark decay is an excellent test of the V-A form of the charged-current weak interaction in the standard model. Since the longitudinal W boson is intimately related to the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism, and the standard model gives a specific prediction for the fraction of longitudinal W bosons from top decays, it is of particular interest for study. This thesis presents a measurement of W boson polarization in top quark decays through an analysis of the cos{theta}* distribution in the lepton-plus-jets channel of t{bar t} candidate events from p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. This measurement uses an integrated luminosity of {approx} 162 pb{sup -1} of data collected with the CDF Run II detector, resulting in 31 t{bar t} candidate events with at least one identified b jet. Using a binned likelihood fit to the cos{theta}* distribution from the t{bar t} candidate events found in this sample, the fraction of W bosons with longitudinal polarization is determined to be F{sub 0} = 0.99{sub -0.35}{sup +0.29}(stat.) {+-} 0.19(syst.), F{sub 0} > 0.33 {at} 95% CL. This result is consistent with the standard model prediction, given a top quarkmore » mass of 174.3 GeV/c{sup 2}, of F{sub 0} = 0.701 {+-} 0.012.« less