Measurement of the production cross section for a W boson and two b jets in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV

The production cross section for a W boson and two b jets is measured using proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV in a data sample collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0fb⁻¹. The W +bb‾ events are selected in the W →μν decay mode by requiring a muon with transverse momentum p_T>25 GeV and pseudorapidity |η| <2.1, and exactly two b-tagged jets with p_T>25 GeV and |η| <2.4. The measured W + bb‾ production cross section in the fiducial region, calculated at the level of final-state particles, is σ(pp → W +bb‾) ×B(W →μν) = 0.53 ±0.05 (stat.) ±0.09 (syst.) ±0.06 (theo.) ±0.01 (lum.) pb, in agreement with the standard model prediction. In addition, kinematic distributions of the W +bb‾ system are in agreement with the predictions of a simulation using MadGraph and pythia.