A measurement of the four-lepton invariant mass spectrum is made with the ATLAS detector, using an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV delivered by the Large Hadron Collider. The differential cross-section is measured for events containing two same-flavour opposite-sign lepton pairs. It exhibits a rich structure, with different mass regions dominated in the Standard Model by single $Z$ boson production, Higgs boson production, and $Z$ boson pair production, and non-negligible interference effects at high invariant masses. The measurement is compared with state-of-the-art Standard Model calculations, which are found to be consistent with the data. These calculations are used to interpret the data in terms of $gg\rightarrow ZZ \rightarrow 4\ell$ and $Z \rightarrow 4\ell$ subprocesses, and to place constraints on a possible contribution from physics beyond the Standard Model.
Statistical covariance matrix for the differential $m_{4l}$-$y_{4l}$ distribution. <br><br> Bins labelled 1-9 correspond to the 0.0$< y_{4l} < $0.4 bin with $m_{4l}$ values as listed in Table 6.<br> Bins labelled 10-18 correspond to the 0.4$< y_{4l} <$0.8 bin with $m_{4l}$ values as listed in Table 7.<br> Bins labelled 19-26 correspond to the 0.8$< y_{4l} <$1.2 bin with $m_{4l}$ values as listed in Table 8.<br> Bins labelled 27-34 correspond to the 1.2$< y_{4l} <$2.5 bin with $m_{4l}$ values as listed in Table 9.