We report a search for single top quark production with the CDF
II detector using 2.1 fb-1 of integrated luminosity of p anti-p collisions
at s**(1/2) ñ.96 TeV. The data selected consist of events characterized
by large energy imbalance in the transverse plane and hadronic jets, and
no identified electrons and muons, so the sample is enriched in W -->
tau nu decays. In order to suppress backgrounds, additional kinematic
and topological requirements are imposed through a neural network, and at
least one of the jets must be identified as a b quark jet. We measure
an excess of signal-like events in agreement with the standard model
prediction, but inconsistent with a model without single top quark
production by 2.1 standard deviations (sigma), with a median expected
sensitivity of 1.4 sigma. Assuming a top quark mass of 175 GeV/c2 and
ascribing the excess to single top quark production, the cross section is
measured to be 4.9+2.5_-2.2 (stat+syst) pb, consistent with measurements
performed in independent datasets and with the standard model prediction.
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Updated: Thursday, 2010 April 22 11:06:33 CDT automatically from input from carol picciolo