Measurement of the \u3ci\u3et t̅\u3c/i\u3e production cross section in \u3ci\u3ep p̅\u3c/i\u3e collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV using lepton plus jets events with semileptonic B decays to muons

We present a measurement of the t[overline t] production cross section using 194 pb-1 of CDF II data using events with a high transverse momentum electron or muon, three or more jets, and missing transverse energy. The measurement assumes 100% t→Wb branching fraction. Events consistent with tt̅ decay are found by identifying jets containing heavy-flavor semileptonic decays to muons. The dominant backgrounds are evaluated directly from the data. Based on 20 candidate events and an expected background of 9.5±1.1 events, we measure a production cross section of 5.3±3.3-1.0+1.3 pb, in agreement with the standard model