Measurement of the ratio of the pp¯→W+c-jet cross section to the inclusive pp¯→W+jets cross section

We present a measurement of the fraction of inclusive W +jets events produced with net charm quantum number 11, denoted W + c-jet, in p collisions at root s = 1.96 TeV using approximately 1 fb(-1) of data collected by the DO detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We identify the W +jets events via the leptonic W boson decays. Candidate W + c-jet events are selected by requiring a jet containing a muon in association with a reconstructed W boson and exploiting the charge correlation between this muon and W boson decay lepton to perform a nearly model-independent background subtraction. We measure the fraction of W + c-jet events in the inclusive W +jets sample for jet PT > 20 GeV and pseudorapidity |eta| < 2.5 to be 0.074 +/- 0.019(stat.) +/-(0.012)(0.014) (syst.), in agreement with theoretical predictions. The probability that background fluctuations could produce the observed fraction of W + c-jet events is estimated to be 2.5 x 10(-4), which corresponds to a 3.5 sigma statistical significance.