Eur. Phys. J. C (2024) 84: 27
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-023-12258-4

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Measurement of the production cross section for a W boson in association with a charm quark in proton–proton collisions at

¹ Yerevan Physics Institute, Yerevan, Armenia
² Institut für Hochenergiephysik, Vienna, Austria
³ Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium
⁴ Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium
⁵ Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium
⁶ Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
⁷ Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
⁸ Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
⁹ Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
¹⁰ Universidade Estadual Paulista, Universidade Federal do ABC, São Paulo, Brazil
¹¹ Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
¹² University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria
¹³ Instituto De Alta Investigación, Universidad de Tarapacá, Casilla 7 D, Arica, Chile
¹⁴ Beihang University, Beijing, China
¹⁵ Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
¹⁶ Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing, China
¹⁷ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, Peking University, Beijing, China
¹⁸ Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
¹⁹ University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
²⁰ Institute of Modern Physics and Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Ion-beam Application (MOE), Fudan University, Shanghai, China
²¹ Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
²² Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
²³ Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia
²⁴ Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Split, Split, Croatia
²⁵ Faculty of Science, University of Split, Split, Croatia
²⁶ Institute Rudjer Boskovic, Zagreb, Croatia
²⁷ University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
²⁸ Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
²⁹ Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Quito, Ecuador
³⁰ Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador
³¹ Academy of Scientific Research and Technology of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Egyptian Network of High Energy Physics, Cairo, Egypt
³² Center for High Energy Physics (CHEP-FU), Fayoum University, El-Fayoum, Egypt
³³ National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Tallinn, Estonia
³⁴ Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
³⁵ Helsinki Institute of Physics, Helsinki, Finland
³⁶ Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland
³⁷ IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
³⁸ Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet, CNRS/IN2P3, Ecole Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau, France
³⁹ Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPHC UMR 7178, Strasbourg, France
⁴⁰ Institut de Physique des 2 Infinis de Lyon (IP2I ), Villeurbanne, France
⁴¹ Georgian Technical University, Tbilisi, Georgia
⁴² I. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
⁴³ III. Physikalisches Institut A, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
⁴⁴ III. Physikalisches Institut B, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
⁴⁵ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Hamburg, Germany
⁴⁶ University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
⁴⁷ Karlsruher Institut fuer Technologie, Karlsruhe, Germany
⁴⁸ Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics (INPP), NCSR Demokritos, Agia Paraskevi, Greece
⁴⁹ National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
⁵⁰ National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
⁵¹ University of Ioánnina, Ioannina, Greece
⁵² MTA-ELTE Lendület CMS Particle and Nuclear Physics Group, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
⁵³ Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, Hungary
⁵⁴ Institute of Nuclear Research ATOMKI, Debrecen, Hungary
⁵⁵ Institute of Physics, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
⁵⁶ Karoly Robert Campus, MATE Institute of Technology, Gyongyos, Hungary
⁵⁷ Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
⁵⁸ University of Delhi, Delhi, India
⁵⁹ Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, HBNI, Kolkata, India
⁶⁰ Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Madras, India
⁶¹ Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India
⁶² Tata Institute of Fundamental Research-A, Mumbai, India
⁶³ Tata Institute of Fundamental Research-B, Mumbai, India
⁶⁴ National Institute of Science Education and Research, An OCC of Homi Bhabha National Institute, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
⁶⁵ Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, India
⁶⁶ Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
⁶⁷ Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Iran
⁶⁸ University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
⁶⁹ INFN Sezione di Bari, Università di Bari, Politecnico di Bari, Bari, Italy
⁷⁰ INFN Sezione di Bologna, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
⁷¹ INFN Sezione di Catania, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy
⁷² INFN Sezione di Firenze, Università di Firenze, Firenze, Italy
⁷³ INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Italy
⁷⁴ INFN Sezione di Genova, Università di Genova, Genoa, Italy
⁷⁵ INFN Sezione di Milano-Bicocca, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
⁷⁶ INFN Sezione di Napoli, Università di Napoli ’Federico II’, Napoli, Italy; Università della Basilicata, Potenza, Italy, Università G. Marconi, Rome, Italy
⁷⁷ INFN Sezione di Padova, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy; Università di Trento, Trento, Italy
⁷⁸ INFN Sezione di Pavia, Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
⁷⁹ INFN Sezione di Perugia, Università di Perugia, Perugia, Italy
⁸⁰ INFN Sezione di Pisa, Università di Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Pisa, Italy; Università di Siena, Siena, Italy
⁸¹ INFN Sezione di Roma, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
⁸² INFN Sezione di Torino, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy; Università del Piemonte Orientale, Novara, Italy
⁸³ INFN Sezione di Trieste, Università di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
⁸⁴ Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
⁸⁵ Chonnam National University, Institute for Universe and Elementary Particles, Kwangju, Korea
⁸⁶ Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea
⁸⁷ Korea University, Seoul, Korea
⁸⁸ Department of Physics, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea
⁸⁹ Sejong University, Seoul, Korea
⁹⁰ Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
⁹¹ University of Seoul, Seoul, Korea
⁹² Department of Physics, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea
⁹³ Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea
⁹⁴ College of Engineering and Technology, American University of the Middle East (AUM), Dasman, Kuwait
⁹⁵ Riga Technical University, Riga, Latvia
⁹⁶ Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
⁹⁷ National Centre for Particle Physics, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
⁹⁸ Universidad de Sonora (UNISON), Hermosillo, Mexico
⁹⁹ Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Mexico City, Mexico
¹⁰⁰ Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico
¹⁰¹ Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
¹⁰² University of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro
¹⁰³ National Centre for Physics, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
¹⁰⁴ AGH University of Science and Technology Faculty of Computer Science, Electronics and Telecommunications, Kraków, Poland
¹⁰⁵ National Centre for Nuclear Research, Swierk, Poland
¹⁰⁶ Institute of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
¹⁰⁷ Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas, Lisbon, Portugal
¹⁰⁸ VINCA Institute of Nuclear Sciences, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
¹⁰⁹ Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
¹¹⁰ Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
¹¹¹ Instituto Universitario de Ciencias y Tecnologías Espaciales de Asturias (ICTEA), Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain
¹¹² Instituto de Física de Cantabria (IFCA), CSIC-Universidad de Cantabria, Santander, Spain
¹¹³ University of Colombo, Colombo, Sri Lanka
¹¹⁴ University of Ruhuna, Department of Physics, Matara, Sri Lanka
¹¹⁵ CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva, Switzerland
¹¹⁶ Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland
¹¹⁷ ETH Zurich-Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics (IPA), Zurich, Switzerland
¹¹⁸ Universität Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
¹¹⁹ National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan
¹²⁰ National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, Taiwan
¹²¹ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
¹²² Physics Department, Science and Art Faculty, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey
¹²³ Physics Department, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
¹²⁴ Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
¹²⁵ Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
¹²⁶ Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey
¹²⁷ Institute for Scintillation Materials of National Academy of Science of Ukraine, Kharkiv, Ukraine
¹²⁸ National Science Centre, Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, Kharkiv, Ukraine
¹²⁹ University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
¹³⁰ Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, UK
¹³¹ Imperial College, London, UK
¹³² Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
¹³³ Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA
¹³⁴ Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA
¹³⁵ The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
¹³⁶ Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
¹³⁷ Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
¹³⁸ University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
¹³⁹ University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
¹⁴⁰ University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
¹⁴¹ University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
¹⁴² Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
¹⁴³ California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
¹⁴⁴ Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
¹⁴⁵ University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
¹⁴⁶ Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
¹⁴⁷ Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL, USA
¹⁴⁸ University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
¹⁴⁹ Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
¹⁵⁰ Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, USA
¹⁵¹ University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Chicago, IL, USA
¹⁵² The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
¹⁵³ Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
¹⁵⁴ The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
¹⁵⁵ Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA
¹⁵⁶ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
¹⁵⁷ University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
¹⁵⁸ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
¹⁵⁹ University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
¹⁶⁰ University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, USA
¹⁶¹ University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
¹⁶² State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA
¹⁶³ Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
¹⁶⁴ Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
¹⁶⁵ University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
¹⁶⁶ The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
¹⁶⁷ Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
¹⁶⁸ University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, PR, USA
¹⁶⁹ Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
¹⁷⁰ Purdue University Northwest, Hammond, IN, USA
¹⁷¹ Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
¹⁷² University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
¹⁷³ The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA
¹⁷⁴ Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA
¹⁷⁵ University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
¹⁷⁶ Texas A &M University, College Station, TX, USA
¹⁷⁷ Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA
¹⁷⁸ Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
¹⁷⁹ University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
¹⁸⁰ Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
¹⁸¹ University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
¹⁸² Authors affiliated with an institute or an international laboratory covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
¹⁸³ Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia
¹⁸⁴ TU Wien, Vienna, Austria
¹⁸⁵ Institute of Basic and Applied Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Alexandria, Egypt
¹⁸⁶ Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium
¹⁸⁷ Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil
¹⁸⁸ Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
¹⁸⁹ UFMS, Nova Andradina, Brazil
¹⁹⁰ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
¹⁹¹ Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
¹⁹² Now at The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
¹⁹³ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
¹⁹⁴ An institute or an international laboratory covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
¹⁹⁵ Now at British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt
¹⁹⁶ Now at Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
¹⁹⁷ Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
¹⁹⁸ Université de Haute Alsace, Mulhouse, France
¹⁹⁹ Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
²⁰⁰ Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
²⁰¹ The University of the State of Amazonas, Manaus, Brazil
²⁰² Erzincan Binali Yildirim University, Erzincan, Turkey
²⁰³ University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
²⁰⁴ III. Physikalisches Institut A, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
²⁰⁵ Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
²⁰⁶ Bergische University Wuppertal (BUW), Wuppertal, Germany
²⁰⁷ Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus, Germany
²⁰⁸ Forschungszentrum Jülich, Juelich, Germany
²⁰⁹ CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva, Switzerland
²¹⁰ Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
²¹¹ Karoly Robert Campus, MATE Institute of Technology, Gyongyos, Hungary
²¹² Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest, Hungary
²¹³ Institute of Physics, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
²¹⁴ Institute of Nuclear Research ATOMKI, Debrecen, Hungary
²¹⁵ Now at Universitatea Babes-Bolyai-Facultatea de Fizica, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
²¹⁶ Faculty of Informatics, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
²¹⁷ Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India
²¹⁸ UPES-University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India
²¹⁹ University of Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India
²²⁰ University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India
²²¹ Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India
²²² Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, India
²²³ IIT Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar, India
²²⁴ Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India
²²⁵ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Hamburg, Germany
²²⁶ Now at Department of Physics, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
²²⁷ Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
²²⁸ Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of Mazandaran, Behshahr, Iran
²²⁹ Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt
²³⁰ Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Bologna, Italy
²³¹ Centro Siciliano di Fisica Nucleare e di Struttura Della Materia, Catania, Italy
²³² Università degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi, Rome, Italy
²³³ Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Università di Napoli ’Federico II’, Naples, Italy
²³⁴ Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL, USA
²³⁵ Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro dell’INFN, Legnaro, Italy
²³⁶ Università di Napoli ’Federico II’, Naples, Italy
²³⁷ Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
²³⁸ Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche-Istituto Officina dei Materiali, Perugia, Italy
²³⁹ Riga Technical University, Riga, Latvia
²⁴⁰ Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
²⁴¹ Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Mexico City, Mexico
²⁴² IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
²⁴³ Faculty of Physics, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
²⁴⁴ Institut für Theoretische Teilchenphysik und Kosmologie, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
²⁴⁵ Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
²⁴⁶ Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Physikalisches Institut, Freiburg, Germany
²⁴⁷ Trincomalee Campus, Eastern University, Sri Lanka, Nilaveli, Sri Lanka
²⁴⁸ INFN Sezione di Pavia, Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
²⁴⁹ National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
²⁵⁰ Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
²⁵¹ Universität Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
²⁵² Stefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic Physics, Vienna, Austria
²⁵³ Laboratoire d’Annecy-le-Vieux de Physique des Particules, IN2P3-CNRS, Annecy-le-Vieux, France
²⁵⁴ Near East University, Research Center of Experimental Health Science, Mersin, Turkey
²⁵⁵ Konya Technical University, Konya, Turkey
²⁵⁶ Izmir Bakircay University, Izmir, Turkey
²⁵⁷ Adiyaman University, Adiyaman, Turkey
²⁵⁸ Istanbul Gedik University, Istanbul, Turkey
²⁵⁹ Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey
²⁶⁰ Bozok Universitetesi Rektörlügü, Yozgat, Turkey
²⁶¹ Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey
²⁶² Milli Savunma University, Istanbul, Turkey
²⁶³ Kafkas University, Kars, Turkey
²⁶⁴ Faculty of Engineering, Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, Istanbul, Turkey
²⁶⁵ Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
²⁶⁶ Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium
²⁶⁷ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
²⁶⁸ University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
²⁶⁹ IPPP Durham University, Durham, UK
²⁷⁰ Faculty of Science, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
²⁷¹ Università di Torino, Turin, Italy
²⁷² Bethel University, St. Paul, MN, USA
²⁷³ Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University, Karaman, Turkey
²⁷⁴ California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
²⁷⁵ United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, USA
²⁷⁶ University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
²⁷⁷ Bingol University, Bingol, Turkey
²⁷⁸ Georgian Technical University, Tbilisi, Georgia
²⁷⁹ Sinop University, Sinop, Turkey
²⁸⁰ Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey
²⁸¹ Institute of Modern Physics and Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Ion-beam Application (MOE)-Fudan University, Shanghai, China
²⁸² Texas A &M University at Qatar, Doha, Qatar
²⁸³ Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
²⁸⁴ another institute or international laboratory covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
²⁸⁵ Yerevan Physics Institute, Yerevan, Armenia
²⁸⁶ Imperial College, London, UK
²⁸⁷ Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
²⁸⁸ CERN, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland

^a cms-publication-committee-chair@cern.ch

Received: 4 August 2023
Accepted: 15 November 2023
Published online: 10 January 2024

Abstract

The strange quark content of the proton is probed through the measurement of the production cross section for a W boson and a charm (c) quark in proton–proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13. The analysis uses a data sample corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 138 collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. The W bosons are identified through their leptonic decays to an electron or a muon, and a neutrino. Charm jets are tagged using the presence of a muon or a secondary vertex inside the jet. The production cross section and the cross section ratio are measured inclusively and differentially as functions of the transverse momentum and the pseudorapidity of the lepton originating from the W boson decay. The precision of the measurements is improved with respect to previous studies, reaching 1% in . The measurements are compared with theoretical predictions up to next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics.