Abstract:
A measurement of the inclusive bottom jet cross section is presented for events containing a Z boson in p anti-p collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96 TeV using the Collider Detector at Fermilab. Z bosons are identified in their electron and muon decay modes, and b jets with E(t) > 20 GeV and |eta| < 1.5 are identified by reconstructing a secondary decay vertex. The measurement is based on an integrated luminosity of about 330 pb-1. A cross section times branching ratio of sigma(Z + b jets) x B(Z --> l+ l-) = 0.93 +/- 0.36 pb is found, where B(Z --> l+ l-) is the branching ratio of the Z boson or gamma* into a single flavor dilepton pair (e or mu) in the mass range between 66 and 116 GeV/c2. The ratio of b jets to the total number of jets of any flavor in the Z sample, within the same kinematic range as the b jets, is 2.36 +/- 0.92\%. Here, the uncertainties are the quadratic sum of statistical and systematic uncertainties. Predictions made with NLO QCD agree, within experimental and theoretical uncertainties, with these measurements.