Measurement of the W-boson mass in pp collisions at s√=7TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

A measurement of the mass of the W boson is presented based on proton–proton collision data recorded in 2011 at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, and corresponding to 4.6 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. The selected data sample consists of 7.8×106 candidates in the 𝑊→𝜇𝜈 channel and 5.9×106 candidates in the 𝑊→𝑒𝜈 channel. The W-boson mass is obtained from template fits to the reconstructed distributions of the charged lepton transverse momentum and of the W boson transverse mass in the electron and muon decay channels, yielding 𝑚𝑊=80370=80370±7 (stat.)±11(exp. syst.)±14 (mod. syst.) MeV±19MeV, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second corresponds to the experimental systematic uncertainty, and the third to the physics-modelling systematic uncertainty. A measurement of the mass difference between the 𝑊+ and 𝑊− bosons yields 𝑚𝑊+−𝑚𝑊−=−29±28 MeV.