Measurement of the $c$-jet mistagging efficiency in $t\bar{t}$ events using $pp$ collision data at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV collected with the ATLAS detector

Abstract: A technique is presented to measure the efficiency with which $c$-jets are mistagged as b-jets (mistagging efficiency) using $t\bar{t}$ events, where one of the $W$ bosons decays into an electron or muon and a neutrino and the other decays into a quark-antiquark pair. The measurement utilises the relatively large and known $W\to cs$ branching ratio, which allows a measurement to be made in an inclusive $c$-jet sample. The data sample used was collected by the ATLAS detector at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. Events are reconstructed using a kinematic likelihood technique which selects the mapping between jets and $t\bar{t}$ decay products that yields the highest likelihood value. The distribution of the $b$-tagging discriminant for jets from the hadronic $W$ decays in data is compared with that in simulation to extract the mistagging efficiency as a function of jet transverse momentum. The total uncertainties are in the range 3%-17%. The measurements generally agree with those in simulation but there are some differences in the region corresponding to the most stringent $b$-jet tagging requirement.