Cross-sections for the production of a $Z$ boson in association with two photons are measured in proton$-$proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data used correspond to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$ recorded by the ATLAS experiment during Run 2 of the LHC. The measurements use the electron and muon decay channels of the $Z$ boson, and a fiducial phase-space region where the photons are not radiated from the leptons. The integrated $Z(\rightarrow\ell\ell)\gamma\gamma$ cross-section is measured with a precision of 12% and differential cross-sections are measured as a function of six kinematic variables of the $Z\gamma\gamma$ system. The data are compared with predictions from MC event generators which are accurate to up to next-to-leading order in QCD. The cross-section measurements are used to set limits on the coupling strengths of dimension-8 operators in the framework of an effective field theory.
Measurements of inclusive and normalized differential cross sections of the associated production of top quark-antiquark and bottom quark-antiquark pairs, ttbb, are presented. The results are based on data from proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. The cross sections are measured in the lepton+jets decay channel of the top quark pair, using events containing exactly one isolated electron or muon and at least five jets. Measurements are made in four fiducial phase space regions, targeting different aspects of the ttbb process. Distributions are unfolded to the particle level through maximum likelihood fits, and compared with predictions from several event generators. The inclusive cross section measurements of this process in the fiducial phase space regions are the most precise to date. In most cases, the measured inclusive cross sections exceed the predictions with the chosen generator settings. The only exception is when using a particular choice of dynamic renormalization scale, $\mu_\mathrm{R}=\frac{1}{2} \prod_{i = \mathrm{t, \bar{t}, b, \bar{b}}} m_{\mathrm{T},i}^{1/4}$, where $m_{\mathrm{T}, i}^2 = m_i^2 + p^2_{\mathrm{T}, i}$ are the transverse masses of top and bottom quarks. The differential cross sections show varying degrees of compatibility with the theoretical predictions, and none of the tested generators with the chosen settings simultaneously describe all the measured distributions.
The $L_{\mu}-L_{\tau}$ extension of the standard model predicts the existence of a lepton-flavor-universality-violating $Z^{\prime}$ boson that couples only to the heavier lepton families. We search for such a $Z^\prime$ through its invisible decay in the process $e^+ e^- \to \mu^+ \mu^- Z^{\prime}$. We use a sample of electron-positron collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 10.58GeV collected by the Belle II experiment in 2019-2020, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 79.7fb$^{-1}$. We find no excess over the expected standard-model background. We set 90$\%$-confidence-level upper limits on the cross section for this process as well as on the coupling of the model, which ranges from $3 \times 10^{-3}$ at low $Z^{\prime}$ masses to 1 at $Z^{\prime}$ masses of 8$GeV/c^{2}$.
Additional spin-0 particles appear in many extensions of the standard model. We search for long-lived spin-0 particles $S$ in $B$-meson decays mediated by a $b\to s$ quark transition in $e^+e^-$ collisions at the $\Upsilon(4S)$ resonance at the Belle II experiment. Based on a sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $189 \mathrm{\,fb}^{-1}$, we observe no evidence for signal. We set model-independent upper limits on the product of branching fractions $\mathrm{Br}(B^0\to K^*(892)^0(\to K^+\pi^-)S)\times \mathrm{Br}(S\to x^+x^-)$ and $\mathrm{Br}(B^+\to K^+S)\times \mathrm{Br}(S\to x^+x^-)$, where $x^+x^-$ indicates $e^+e^-, \mu^+\mu^-, \pi^+\pi^-$, or $K^+K^-$, as functions of $S$ mass and lifetime at the level of $10^{-7}$.
We measure the complete set of angular coefficients $J_i$ for exclusive $\bar{B} \to D^* \ell \bar{\nu}_\ell$ decays ($\ell = e, \mu$). Our analysis uses the full $711\,\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ Belle data set with hadronic tag-side reconstruction. The results allow us to extract the form factors describing the $B \to D^*$ transition and the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element $|V_{\rm cb}|$. Using recent lattice QCD calculations for the hadronic form factors, we find $|V_{\rm cb}| = (41.0 \pm 0.7) \times 10^3 $ using the BGL parameterization, compatible with determinations from inclusive semileptonic decays. We search for lepton flavor universality violation as a function of the hadronic recoil parameter $w$, and investigate the differences of the electron and muon angular distributions. We find no deviation from Standard Model expectations.
Differential cross-sections are measured for the production of four charged leptons in association with two jets. These measurements are sensitive to final states in which the jets are produced via the strong interaction as well as to the purely-electroweak vector boson scattering process. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data collected by ATLAS at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV and with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb$^{-1}$. The data are corrected for the effects of detector inefficiency and resolution and are compared to state-of-the-art Monte Carlo event generator predictions. The differential cross-sections are used to search for anomalous weak-boson self-interactions that are induced by dimension-six and dimension-eight operators in Standard Model effective field theory.
The cross sections for inclusive and Mueller-Navelet dijet production are measured as a function of the rapidity separation between the jets in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 2.76 TeV for jets with transverse momentum $p_\mathrm{T}$$\gt$ 35 GeV and rapidity $\vert y\vert$$\lt$ 4.7. Various dijet production cross section ratios are also measured. A veto on additional jets with $p_\mathrm{T}$$\gt$ 20 GeV is introduced to improve the sensitivity to the effects of the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) evolution. The measurement is compared with the predictions of various Monte Carlo models based on leading-order and next-to-leading-order calculations including the Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi leading-logarithm (LL) parton shower as well as the LL BFKL resummation.
Energy correlators that describe energy-weighted distances between two or three particles in a jet are measured using an event sample of $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.3 fb$^{-1}$. The measured distributions are consistent with the trends in the simulation that reveal two key features of the strong interaction: confinement and asymptotic freedom. By comparing the ratio of the measured three- and two-particle energy correlator distributions with theoretical calculations that resum collinear emissions at approximate next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy matched to a next-to-leading order calculation, the strong coupling is determined at the Z boson mass: $\alpha_\mathrm{S}(m_\mathrm{Z})$ = 0.1229 $^{+0.0040}_{-0.0050}$, the most precise $\alpha_\mathrm{S}(m_\mathrm{Z})$ value obtained using jet substructure observables.
A measurement is presented of a ratio observable that provides a measure of the azimuthal correlations among jets with large transverse momentum $p_\mathrm{T}$. This observable is measured in multijet events over the range of $p_\mathrm{T}$ = 360-3170 GeV based on data collected by the CMS experiment in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 134 fb$^{-1}$. The results are compared with predictions from Monte Carlo parton-shower event generator simulations, as well as with fixed-order perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) predictions at next-to-leading-order (NLO) accuracy obtained with different parton distribution functions (PDFs) and corrected for nonperturbative and electroweak effects. Data and theory agree within uncertainties. From the comparison of the measured observable with the pQCD prediction obtained with the NNPDF3.1 NLO PDFs, the strong coupling at the Z boson mass scale is $\alpha_\mathrm{S}(m_\mathrm{Z})$ = 0.1177 $\pm$ 0.0013 (exp) $_{-0.0073}^{+0.0116}$ (theo) = 0.1177 $_{-0.0074}^{+0.0117}$, where the total uncertainty is dominated by the scale dependence of the fixed-order predictions. A test of the running of $\alpha_\mathrm{S}(m_\mathrm{Z})$ in the TeV region shows no deviation from the expected NLO pQCD behaviour.
A study of the anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson to vector bosons, including $CP$-violation effects, has been conducted using its production and decay in the WW channel. This analysis is performed on proton-proton collision data collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC during 2016-2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. The different-flavor dilepton (e$\mu$) final state is analyzed, with dedicated categories targeting gluon fusion, electroweak vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or Z boson. Kinematic information from associated jets is combined using matrix element techniques to increase the sensitivity to anomalous effects at the production vertex. A simultaneous measurement of four Higgs boson couplings to electroweak vector bosons is performed in the framework of a standard model effective field theory. All measurements are consistent with the expectations for the standard model Higgs boson and constraints are set on the fractional contribution of the anomalous couplings to the Higgs boson production cross section.
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