Dependence of the t¯t production cross section on the transverse momentum of the top quark

We present a measurement of the differential cross section for View the MathML sourcett¯ events produced in View the MathML sourcepp¯ collisions at View the MathML sources=1.96 TeV as a function of the transverse momentum (pTpT) of the top quark. The selected events contain a high-pTpT lepton (ℓ ), a large imbalance in pTpT, four or more jets with at least one candidate for a b jet, and correspond to 1 fb−1 of integrated luminosity recorded with the D0 detector. Objects in the event are associated through a constrained kinematic fit to the View the MathML sourcett¯→WbWb¯→ℓνbqq¯′b¯ process. Results from next and next-to-next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations agree with the measured differential cross section. Comparisons are also provided to predictions from Monte Carlo event generators using QCD calculations at different levels of precision.