Measurement of the inclusive $W^pm$ and Z/gamma cross sections in the electron and muon decay channels in $pp$ collisions at $sqrts=7$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

The production cross sections of the inclusive Drell-Yan processes W to l nu and Z/gamma to ll (l=e,mu) are measured in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector. The cross sections are reported integrated over a fiducial kinematic range, extrapolated to the full range and also evaluated differentially as a function of the W decay lepton pseudorapidity and the Z boson rapidity, respectively. Based on an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1 collected in 2010, the precision of these measurements reaches a few per cent. The integrated and the differential W_s16- and Z/gamma cross sections in the e and mu channels are combined, and compared with perturbative QCD calculations, based on a number of different parton distribution sets available at NNLO.