Measurement of the t(t)over-bar production cross section in p(p)over-bar collisions at root s=1.96 TeV using lepton plus jets events with jet probability b-tagging

We present a measurement of the t (t) over bar production cross section using events with one charged lepton and jets from p (p) over bar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. A b-tagging algorithm based on the probability of displaced tracks coming from the event interaction vertex is applied to identify b quarks from top decay. Using 318 pb(-1) of data collected with the CDF II detector, we measure the t (t) over bar production cross section in events with at least one restrictive (tight) b-tagged jet and obtain 8.9(-1.0)(+1.0)(stat)(-1.0)(+1.1)(syst) pb. The cross section value assumes a top quark mass of m(t)=178 GeV/c(2) in the acceptance corrections. The dependence of the cross section on m(t) is presented in the paper. This result is consistent with other CDF measurements of the t (t) over bar cross section using different samples and analysis techniques, and has similar systematic uncertainties. We have also performed consistency checks by using the b-tagging probability function to vary the signal-to-background ratio and also using events that have at least two b-tagged jets.