Isolated electrons and muons in events with missing transverse momentum at HERA

A search for events with a high-energy isolated electron or muon and missing transverse momentum has been performed at the electron-proton collider HERA using an integrated luminosity of 13.6 pb(-1) in e(-) p scattering and 104.7 pb(-1) in e(+) p scattering. Within the Standard Model such events are expected to be mainly due to W boson production with subsequent leptonic decay. In e(-) p interactions one event is observed in the electron channel and none in the muon channel, consistent with the expectation of the Standard Model. In the e(+) p data a total of 18 events are seen in the electron and muon channels compared to an expectation of 12.4 +/- 1.7 dominated by W production (9.4 +/- 1.6). Whilst the overall observed number of events is broadly in agreement with the number predicted by the Standard Model, there is-an excess of events with transverse momentum of the hadronic system greater than 25 GeV with 10 events found compared to 2.9 +/- 0.5 expected. The results are used to determine the cross-section for events with an isolated electron or muon and missing transverse momentum. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.