Event-shape variables, which are sensitive to perturbative and nonperturbative aspects of quantum chromodynamic (QCD) interactions, are studied in multijet events recorded in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV. Events are selected with at least one jet with transverse momentum pt > 110 GeV and pseudorapidity abs(eta) < 2.4, in a data sample corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5 inverse femtobarns. The distributions of five event-shape variables in various leading jet pt ranges are compared to predictions from different QCD Monte Carlo event generators.
Measurements of joint-polarisation states of $W$ and $Z$ gauge bosons in $W^{\pm}Z$ production are presented. The data set used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $139$ fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $13$ TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The $W^{\pm}Z$ candidate events are reconstructed using leptonic decay modes of the gauge bosons into electrons and muons. The simultaneous pair-production of longitudinally polarised vector bosons is measured for the first time with a significance of $7.1$ standard deviations. The measured joint helicity fractions integrated over the fiducial region are $f_{\mathrm{00}} = 0.067 \pm 0.010$, $f_{\mathrm{0T}} = 0.110 \pm 0.029$, $f_{\mathrm{T0}} = 0.179 \pm 0.023$ and $f_{\mathrm{TT}} = 0.644 \pm 0.032$, in agreement with the next-to-leading-order Standard Model predictions. Individual helicity fractions of the $W$ and $Z$ bosons are also measured and found to be consistent with joint helicity fractions within the expected amount of correlations. Both the joint and individual helicity fractions are also measured separately in $W^+Z$ and $W^-Z$ events. Inclusive and differential cross sections for several kinematic observables sensitive to polarisation are presented.
A measurement of WZ electroweak (EW) vector boson scattering is presented. The measurement is performed in the leptonic decay modes WZ $\to$ $\ell\nu\ell'\ell'$, where $\ell, \ell' = $ e, $\mu$. The analysis is based on a data sample of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV at the LHC collected with the CMS detector and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. The WZ plus two jet production cross section is measured in fiducial regions with enhanced contributions from EW production and found to be consistent with standard model predictions. The EW WZ production in association with two jets is measured with an observed (expected) significance of 2.2 (2.5) standard deviations. Constraints on charged Higgs boson production and on anomalous quartic gauge couplings in terms of dimension-eight effective field theory operators are also presented.
Four-lepton production in proton-proton collisions, $\mathrm{pp}\to (\mathrm{Z}/ \gamma^*)(\mathrm{Z}/\gamma^*) \to 4\ell$, where $\ell = \mathrm{e}$ or $\mu$, is studied at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. The ZZ production cross section, $\sigma(\mathrm{pp} \to \mathrm{Z}\mathrm{Z}) = 17.2 \pm 0.5\text{ (stat) }\pm 0.7\text{ (syst) }\pm 0.4(\mathrm{theo}) \pm 0.4\text{ (lumi)}$ pb, measured using events with two opposite-sign, same-flavor lepton pairs produced in the mass region $60 < m_{\ell^+\ell^-} < $120 GeV, is consistent with standard model predictions. Differential cross sections are measured and are well described by the theoretical predictions. The Z boson branching fraction to four leptons is measured to be $\mathcal{B}(\mathrm{Z}\to 4\ell) = 4.8 \pm 0.2\text{ (stat) }\pm 0.2\text{ (syst) } \pm 0.1\text{ (theo) }\pm 0.1\text{ (lumi) }\times 10^{-6}$ for events with a four-lepton invariant mass in the range 80 $ < m_{4\ell} < $ 100 GeV and a dilepton mass $m_{\ell\ell} > $4 GeV for all opposite-sign, same-flavor lepton pairs. The results agree with standard model predictions. The invariant mass distribution of the four-lepton system is used to set limits on anomalous ZZZ and ZZ$\gamma$ couplings at 95% confidence level: $-0.0012 < f_4^\mathrm{Z} < 0.0010$, $-0.0010 < f_5^\mathrm{Z} < 0.0013$, $-0.0012 < f_4^{\gamma} < 0.0013$, $-0.0012 < f_5^{\gamma} < 0.0013$.
Results of a search for the pair production of photon-jets$-$collimated groupings of photons$-$in the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. Highly collimated photon-jets can arise from the decay of new, highly boosted particles that can decay to multiple photons collimated enough to be identified in the electromagnetic calorimeter as a single, photonlike energy cluster. Data from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.7 fb$^{-1}$, were collected in 2015 and 2016. Candidate photon-jet pair production events are selected from those containing two reconstructed photons using a set of identification criteria much less stringent than that typically used for the selection of photons, with additional criteria applied to provide improved sensitivity to photon-jets. Narrow excesses in the reconstructed diphoton mass spectra are searched for. The observed mass spectra are consistent with the Standard Model background expectation. The results are interpreted in the context of a model containing a new, high-mass scalar particle with narrow width, $X$, that decays into pairs of photon-jets via new, light particles, $a$. Upper limits are placed on the cross section times the product of branching ratios $\sigma \times \mathcal{B}(X \rightarrow aa) \times \mathcal {B}(a \rightarrow \gamma \gamma)^{2}$ for 200 GeV $< m_{X} <$ 2 TeV and for ranges of $ m_a $ from a lower mass of 100 MeV up to between 2 and 10 GeV, depending upon $ m_X $. Upper limits are also placed on $\sigma \times \mathcal{B}(X \rightarrow aa) \times \mathcal {B}(a \rightarrow 3\pi^{0})^{2}$ for the same range of $ m_X $ and for ranges of $ m_a $ from a lower mass of 500 MeV up to between 2 and 10 GeV.
Searches are performed for nonresonant and resonant di-Higgs boson production in the $b\bar{b}\gamma\gamma$ final state. The data set used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. No excess above the expected background is found and upper limits on the di-Higgs boson production cross sections are set. A 95% confidence-level upper limit of 4.2 times the cross section predicted by the Standard Model is set on $pp \rightarrow HH$ nonresonant production, where the expected limit is 5.7 times the Standard Model predicted value. The expected constraints are obtained for a background hypothesis excluding $pp \rightarrow HH$ production. The observed (expected) constraints on the Higgs boson trilinear coupling modifier $\kappa_{\lambda}$ are determined to be $[-1.5, 6.7]$ $([-2.4, 7.7])$ at 95% confidence level, where the expected constraints on $\kappa_{\lambda}$ are obtained excluding $pp \rightarrow HH$ production from the background hypothesis. For resonant production of a new hypothetical scalar particle $X$ ($X \rightarrow HH \rightarrow b\bar{b}\gamma\gamma$), limits on the cross section for $pp \to X \to HH$ are presented in the narrow-width approximation as a function of $m_{X}$ in the range $251 \leq m_{X} \leq 1000$ GeV. The observed (expected) limits on the cross section for $pp \to X \to HH$ range from 640 fb to 44 fb (391 fb to 46 fb) over the considered mass range.
Measurements of the ZZ production cross sections in proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV are presented. Candidate events for the leptonic decay mode ZZ to 2 l 2 nu, where l denotes an electron or a muon, are reconstructed and selected from data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.1 (19.6) inverse femtobarns at 7 (8) TeV collected with the CMS experiment. The measured cross sections, sigma(pp to ZZ) = 5.1 -1.4 +1.5 (stat) -1.1 +1.4 (syst) +/- 0.1 (lumi) pb at 7 TeV, and 7.2 -0.8 +0.8 (stat.) -1.5 +1.9 (syst) +/- 0.2 (lumi) pb at 8 TeV, are in good agreement with the standard model predictions with next-to-leading-order accuracy. The selected data are analyzed to search for anomalous triple gauge couplings involving the ZZ final state. In the absence of any deviation from the standard model predictions, limits are set on the relevant parameters. These limits are then combined with the previously published CMS results for ZZ in 4 l final states, yielding the most stringent constraints on the anomalous couplings.
A search for high-mass resonances decaying to $\tau\nu$ using proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV produced by the Large Hadron Collider is presented. Only $\tau$-lepton decays with hadrons in the final state are considered. The data were recorded with the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb$^{-1}$. No statistically significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed; model-independent upper limits are set on the visible $\tau\nu$ production cross section. Heavy $W^{\prime}$ bosons with masses less than 3.7 TeV in the Sequential Standard Model and masses less than 2.2-3.8 TeV depending on the coupling in the non-universal G(221) model are excluded at the 95% credibility level.
A search for physics beyond the standard model in events with at least three leptons is presented. The data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collisions with center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, was collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC during 2012. The data are divided into exclusive categories based on the number of leptons and their flavor, the presence or absence of an opposite-sign, same-flavor lepton pair (OSSF), the invariant mass of the OSSF pair, the presence or absence of a tagged bottom-quark jet, the number of identified hadronically decaying tau leptons, and the magnitude of the missing transverse energy and of the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta. The numbers of observed events are found to be consistent with the expected numbers from standard model processes, and limits are placed on new-physics scenarios that yield multilepton final states. In particular, scenarios that predict Higgs boson production in the context of supersymmetric decay chains are examined. We also place a 95% confidence level upper limit of 1.3% on the branching fraction for the decay of a top quark to a charm quark and a Higgs boson (t to c H), which translates to a bound on the left- and right-handed top-charm flavor-violating Higgs Yukawa couplings, lambda[H, tc] and lambda[H, ct], respectively, of sqrt(abs(lambda[H, tc])^2 + abs(lambda[H, ct])^2) < 0.21.
The polarizations of prompt J/psi and psi(2S) mesons are measured in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using a dimuon data sample collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 inverse femtobarns. The prompt J/psi and psi(2S) polarization parameters lambda[theta], lambda[phi], and lambda[theta,phi], as well as the frame-invariant quantity lambda(tilde), are measured from the dimuon decay angular distributions in three different polarization frames. The J/psi results are obtained in the transverse momentum range 14 < pt < 70 GeV, in the rapidity intervals abs(y) < 0.6 and 0.6 < abs(y) < 1.2. The corresponding psi(2S) results cover 14 < pt < 50 GeV and include a third rapidity bin, 1.2 < abs(y) < 1.5. No evidence of large transverse or longitudinal polarizations is seen in these kinematic regions, which extend much beyond those previously explored.
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