THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES A PRECISION MEASUREMENT OF THE W → μν CHARGE ASYMMETRY AT A CENTER OF MASS ENERGY OF 1.96 TEV USING THE DØ DETECTOR By SINJINI SENGUPTA

This dissertation describes a measurement of the muon charge asymmetry from W boson decays. The charge asymmetry provides useful information about the momentum distribution of u and d quarks inside the proton. The charge asymmetry was measured using ≈ 230 pb−1 of data collected between 2002 and 2004 using the DØ detector at the Tevatron collider at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. In the Tevatron, protons and antiprotons collide with a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The signal consists of one high transverse momentum muon and missing transverse energy while the background which comes from other events also producing a high transverse momentum muon. As the charge asymmetry depends on the number of positive and negative muons from the W boson decay in each bin of pseudorapidity, the background are removed. The resultant distribution is compared with predictions from NLO calculations using the CTEQ6.1M and the MRST02 PDFs. This is the first approved result for the W charge asymmetry from DØ.