A measurement of vector boson ($V$) production in conjunction with a $D^{*}(2010{)}^{+}$ meson is presented. Using a data sample corresponding to $9.7{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of proton-antiproton collisions at center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=1.96\mathrm{TeV}$ produced by the Fermilab Tevatron, we reconstruct $V+D^{*+}$ samples with the CDF II detector. The $D^{*+}$ is fully reconstructed in the $D^{*}(2010{)}^{+}\to D^0(\to K^{-}{\pi }^{+}){\pi }^{+}$ decay mode. This technique is sensitive to the associated production of vector boson plus charm or bottom mesons. We measure the ratio of production cross sections $\sigma (W+D^{*})/\sigma (W)=[1.75\pm 0.13(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.09(\mathrm{stat})]\%$ and $\sigma (Z+D^{*})/\sigma (Z)=[1.5\pm 0.4(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.2(\mathrm{stat})]\%$ and perform a differential measurement of $d\sigma (W+D^{*})/d{p}_T(D^{*})$. Event properties are utilized to determine the fraction of $V+D^{*}(2010{)}^{+}$ events originating from different production processes. The results are in agreement with the predictions obtained with the pythia program, limiting possible contribution from non-standard-model physics processes.

• Received 26 August 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.93.052012