Search for a heavy neutral gauge boson in the dielectron channel with 5.4 fb−1 of pp¯ collisions at s=1.96 TeV

We report the results of a search for a heavy neutral gauge boson Z′ decaying into the dielectron final state using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb−1 collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. No significant excess above the standard model prediction is observed in the dielectron invariant-mass spectrum. We set 95σ(pp¯→Z′)×BR(Z′→ee) depending on the dielectron invariant mass. These cross section limits are used to determine lower mass limits for Z′ bosons in a variety of models. For the sequential standard model Z′ boson a lower mass limit of 1023 GeV is obtained.