A search for the central exclusive production of top quark-antiquark pairs ($\mathrm{t\bar{t}}$) is performed for the first time using proton-tagged events in proton-proton collisions at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 29.4 fb$^{-1}$. The $\mathrm{t\bar{t}}$ decay products are reconstructed using the central CMS detector, while forward protons are measured in the CMS-TOTEM precision proton spectrometer. An observed (expected) upper bound on the production cross section of 0.59 (1.14) pb is set at 95% confidence level, for collisions of protons with fractional momentum losses between 2 and 20%.
Expected and observed 95% confidence level (CL) upper limits for the cross section of $\mathrm{pp} \rightarrow \mathrm{p t \bar{t} p}$, for the dilepton and $\ell+$jets channels separately and combined. The green and yellow bands show the 68 and 95% intervals, respectively, for the expected upper limit.
A search is performed for exclusive high-mass $\gamma\gamma$$\to$ WW and $\gamma\gamma$$\to$ ZZ production in proton-proton collisions using intact forward protons reconstructed in near-beam detectors, with both weak bosons decaying into boosted and merged jets. The analysis is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS and TOTEM experiments at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 100 fb$^{-1}$. No excess above the standard model background prediction is observed, and upper limits are set on the pp $\to$ pWWp and pp $\to$ pZZp cross sections in a fiducial region defined by the diboson invariant mass $m$(VV) $\lt$ 1 TeV (with V = W, Z) and proton fractional momentum loss 0.04 $\lt$$\xi$$\lt$ 0.20. The results are interpreted as new limits on dimension-6 and dimension-8 anomalous quartic gauge couplings.
Expected and observed upper limits on the AQGC operators $a^W_0/\Lambda^2$, with no unitarization. The $y$ axis shows the limit on the ratio of the observed cross section to the cross section predicted for each anomalous coupling value ($\sigma_\mathrm{AQGC}$).
Expected and observed upper limits on the AQGC operators $a^W_C/\Lambda^2$, with no unitarization. The $y$ axis shows the limit on the ratio of the observed cross section to the cross section predicted for each anomalous coupling value ($\sigma_\mathrm{AQGC}$).
Expected and observed upper limits on the AQGC operators $a^Z_0/\Lambda^2$, with no unitarization. The $y$ axis shows the limit on the ratio of the observed cross section to the cross section predicted for each anomalous coupling value ($\sigma_\mathrm{AQGC}$).