The mass of the W boson, a mediator of the weak force between elementary particles, is tightly constrained by the symmetries of the standard model of particle physics. The Higgs boson was the last missing component of the model. After observation of the Higgs boson, a measurement of the W boson mass provides a stringent test of the model. We measure the W boson mass, M W , using data corresponding to 8.8 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected in proton-antiproton collisions at a 1.96 tera–electron volt center-of-mass energy with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. A sample of approximately 4 million W boson candidates is used to obtain M W = 80 , 433.5 ± 6.4 stat ± 6.9 syst = 80 , 433.5 ± 9.4  MeV / c 2 , the precision of which exceeds that of all previous measurements combined (stat, statistical uncertainty; syst, systematic uncertainty; MeV, mega–electron volts; c , speed of light in a vacuum). This measurement is in significant tension with the standard model expectation.

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Buildup and decay transients were observed when polar or nonpolar liquid cells were placed within the resonator of a helium—neon laser operating in the red at 6328 Å. Similar but smaller effects were also observed with two solids. Time constants were the order of a few seconds for all materials, which suggests a thermal phenomenon, but general heating effects were ruled out by the strong localization of the phenomenon. Transverse motion of the cell by about one beam width caused new transients similar to the initial ones. It is believed that the effects are caused by absorption of the red light in the material, producing a local heating in the vicinity of the beam and a lens effect arising from the transverse gradient of refractive index. Absorptions of 10−3 to 10−4 parts per centimeter are sufficient to produce the effects, and are believed to be reasonable values for the materials studied. One of the most important applications may in fact be for the measurement of small absorbancies. The experiments are described, and analysis of the lens effect from absorption is given. Alternate explanations which were considered are stated briefly.

We report the first measurements of inclusive W and Z boson cross sections times the corresponding leptonic branching ratios for pp collisions at √ s = 1.96 TeV based on the decays of the W and Z bosons into electrons and muons. The data were recorded with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab 4Tevatron and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 72.0 ± 4.3 pb −1 . We test e-µ lepton universality in W decays by measuring the ratio of the W → µν to W → eν cross sections and determine a value of 0.991 ± 0.004(stat.) ± 0.011(syst.) for the ratio of W −ℓ−ν couplings (gµ/ge). Since there is no sign of non-universality, we combine our cross section measurements in the different lepton decay modes and obtain σW ×Br(pp → W → ℓν) = 2.749 ± 0.010(stat.) ± 0.053(syst.) ± 0.165(lum.) nb and σ γ * /Z × Br(pp → γ * /Z → ℓℓ) = 254.9 ± 3.3(stat.) ± 4.6(syst.) ± 15.2(lum.) pb for dilepton pairs in the mass range between 66 GeV/c 2 and 116 GeV/c 2 . We compute the ratio R of the W → ℓν to Z → ℓℓ cross sections taking all correlations among channels into account and obtain R = 10.84 ± 0.15(stat.) ± 0.14(syst.) including a correction for the virtual photon exchange component in our measured γ * /Z → ℓℓ cross section. Based on the measured value of R, we extract values for the W leptonic branching ratio, Br(W → ℓν) = 0.1082 ± 0.0022; the total width of the W boson, Γ(W ) = 2092 ± 42 MeV; and the ratio of W and Z boson total widths, Γ(W )/Γ(Z) = 0.838 ± 0.017. In addition, we use our extracted value of Γ(W ) whose value depends on various electroweak parameters and certain CKM matrix elements to constrain the Vcs CKM matrix element, |Vcs| = 0.976± 0.030.

We summarize and combine direct measurements of the mass of the W boson in √ s = 1.96 TeV proton-antiproton collision data collected by CDF and D0 experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. Earlier measurements from CDF and D0 are combined with the two latest, more precise measurements: a CDF measurement in the electron and muon channels using data corresponding to 2.2 fb −1 of integrated luminosity, and a D0 measurement in the electron channel using data corresponding to 4.3 fb −1 of integrated luminosity. The resulting Tevatron average for the mass of the W boson is MW = 80 387 ± 16 MeV. Including measurements obtained in electron-positron collisions at LEP yields the most precise value of MW = 80 385 ± 15 MeV.