Measurement of the Forward-Backward Charge Asymmetry and Extraction of ${sin}^2{\theta }_W^{\mathrm{eff}}$ in $p\overline{p}\to Z/{\gamma }^{*}+X\to e^{+}{e}^{-}+X$ Events Produced at $\sqrt{s}=1.96\mathrm{TeV}$

We present a measurement of the forward-backward charge asymmetry ($A_{FB}$) in $p\overline{p}\to Z/{\gamma }^{*}+X\to e^{+}{e}^{-}+X$ events at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV using $1.1{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of data collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. $A_{FB}$ is measured as a function of the invariant mass of the electron-positron pair, and found to be consistent with the standard model prediction. We use the $A_{FB}$ measurement to extract the effective weak mixing angle ${sin}^2{\theta }_W^{\mathrm{eff}}=0.2326\pm 0.0018(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.0006(\mathrm{syst})$.

Figure 1

Comparison between the unfolded $A_{FB}$ (points) and the pythia (solid curve) and zgrad2 (dashed line) predictions. The inner (outer) vertical lines show the statistical (total) uncertainty.