Measurement of the ZZ production cross section in pp¯ collisions at s=1.96TeV

The authors present a new measurement of the production cross section σ(pp = ZZ) at a center-of-mass energy √s = 1.96 TeV, obtained from the analysis of the four charged lepton final state l+l-l`+l`- (l, l` = e or μ). They observe ten candidate events with an expected background of 0.37 ± 0.13 events. The measured cross section σ(pp =ZZ) = 1.26-0.37+0.47 (stat) ± 0.14 (syst) pb is in agreement with NLO QCD predictions. This result is combined with a previous result from the ZZ = l+l- νν channel resulting in a combined cross section of σ(pp = ZZ) = 1.40-0.37+0.43 (stat) ±0.14 (syst) pb.