A direct measurement of the total decay width of the W boson
Gamma(W) is presented using 350 pb-1 of data from p anti-p collisions at
s**(1/2) = 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab
Tevatron. The width is determined by normalizing predicted signal and
background distributions to 230185 W candidates decaying to e nu and
mu nu in the transverse-mass region 50 < M_T < 90 GeV and then
fitting the predicted shape to 6055 events in the high-M_T region, 90 <
M_T < 200 GeV. The result is Gamma(W) = 2032 +/- 45 (stat.) +/- 57
(syst.) MeV, consistent with the standard model expectation.
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Updated: Friday, 2008 February 22 13:11:04 CST automatically from input from carol picciolo