First observation of $WZ$ production and the search for anomalous $WWZ$ couplings at CDF

We report the first observation of $WZ$ production in $p \bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt(s) = 1.96$ TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron using 1.1 $fb^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity collected by the CDF II detector. We observe 16 $WZ$ candidates passing the event selection with an expected background of 2.7 $\pm$ 0.4. A fit to the missing transverse energy distribution indicates an excess of events compared to background expectations corresponding to a 6.0 $\sigma$ observation of $WZ$ production. Additionally, we use the sample to set limits on anomalous triple gauge couplings and to search for new physics in the $WZ$ final state.