We report on measurements of sequential $\Upsilon$ suppression in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV with the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) through both the dielectron and dimuon decay channels. In the 0-60% centrality class, the nuclear modification factors ($R_{\mathrm{AA}}$), which quantify the level of yield suppression in heavy-ion collisions compared to $p$+$p$ collisions, for $\Upsilon$(1S) and $\Upsilon$(2S) are $0.40 \pm 0.03~\textrm{(stat.)} \pm 0.03~\textrm{(sys.)} \pm 0.09~\textrm{(norm.)}$ and $0.26 \pm 0.08~\textrm{(stat.)} \pm 0.02~\textrm{(sys.)} \pm 0.06~\textrm{(norm.)}$, respectively, while the upper limit of the $\Upsilon$(3S) $R_{\mathrm{AA}}$ is 0.17 at a 95% confidence level. This provides experimental evidence that the $\Upsilon$(3S) is significantly more suppressed than the $\Upsilon$(1S) at RHIC. The level of suppression for $\Upsilon$(1S) is comparable to that observed at the much higher collision energy at the Large Hadron Collider. These results point to the creation of a medium at RHIC whose temperature is sufficiently high to strongly suppress excited $\Upsilon$ states.

The ALICE Collaboration at the CERN LHC has measured the inclusive production cross section of isolated photons at midrapidity as a function of the photon transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}^{\gamma}$), in Pb$-$Pb collisions in different centrality intervals, and in pp collisions, at centre-of-momentum energy per nucleon pair of $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.02$ TeV. The photon transverse momentum range is between 10-14 and 40-140 GeV/$c$, depending on the collision system and on the Pb$-$Pb centrality class. The result extends to lower $p_{\rm T}^{\gamma}$ than previously published results by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the same collision energy. The covered pseudorapidity range is $|\eta^{\gamma}| <0.67$. The isolation selection is based on a charged particle isolation momentum threshold $p_{\rm T}^{\rm iso,~ch} = 1.5$ GeV/$c$ within a cone of radii $R=0.2$ and $0.4$. The nuclear modification factor is calculated and found to be consistent with unity in all centrality classes, and also consistent with the HG-PYTHIA model, which describes the event selection and geometry biases that affect the centrality determination in peripheral Pb$-$Pb collisions. The measurement is compared to next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and to the measurements of isolated photons and Z$^0$ bosons from the CMS experiment, which are all found to be in agreement.

ALICE is a large experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Located 52 meters underground, its detectors are suitable to measure muons produced by cosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere. In this paper, the studies of the cosmic muons registered by ALICE during Run 2 (2015--2018) are described. The analysis is limited to multimuon events defined as events with more than four detected muons ($N_\mu>4$) and in the zenith angle range $0^{\circ}<\theta<50^{\circ}$. The results are compared with Monte Carlo simulations using three of the main hadronic interaction models describing the air shower development in the atmosphere: QGSJET-II-04, EPOS-LHC, and SIBYLL 2.3d. The interval of the primary cosmic-ray energy involved in the measured muon multiplicity distribution is about $ 4 \times 10^{15}<E_\mathrm{prim}< 6 \times 10^{16}$~eV. In this interval none of the three models is able to describe precisely the trend of the composition of cosmic rays as the energy increases. However, QGSJET-II-04 is found to be the only model capable of reproducing reasonably well the muon multiplicity distribution, assuming a heavy composition of the primary cosmic rays over the whole energy range, while SIBYLL 2.3d and EPOS-LHC underpredict the number of muons in a large interval of multiplicity by more than $20\%$ and $30\%$, respectively. The rate of high muon multiplicity events ($N_\mu>100$) obtained with QGSJET-II-04 and SIBYLL 2.3d is compatible with the data, while EPOS-LHC produces a significantly lower rate ($55\%$ of the measured rate). For both QGSJET-II-04 and SIBYLL 2.3d, the rate is close to the data when the composition is assumed to be dominated by heavy elements, an outcome compatible with the average energy $E_\mathrm{prim} \sim 10^{17}$ eV of these events. This result places significant constraints on more exotic production mechanisms.

Differential two-particle normalized cumulants ($R_2$) and transverse momentum correlations ($P_2$) are measured as a function of the relative pseudorapidity and azimuthal angle difference $( Δη, Δφ)$ of charged particle pairs in minimum bias pp collisions at $\sqrt{\textit{s}}$ = 13 TeV. The measurements use charged hadrons in the pseudorapidity region of $|η| < 0.8$ and the transverse momentum range \mbox{0.2 $< \textit{p}_{\mathrm T} < $ 2.0 $\mathrm{GeV}/\textit{c}$} in order to focus on soft multiparticle interactions and to complement prior measurements of these correlation functions in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions. The correlation functions are reported for both unlike-sign and like-sign pairs and their charge-independent and charge-dependent combinations. Both the $R_2$ and $P_2$ measured in pp collisions exhibit features qualitatively similar to those observed in p--Pb and Pb--Pb collisions. The $Δη$ and $Δφ$ root mean square widths of the near-side peak of the correlation functions are evaluated and compared with those observed in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions and show smooth evolution with the multiplicity of charged particles produced in the collision. The comparison of the measured correlation functions with predictions from PYTHIA8 shows that this model qualitatively captures their basic structure and characteristics but feature important differences. In addition, the $R_2^{\rm CD}$ is used to determine the charge balance function of hadrons produced within the detector acceptance of the measurements. The integral of the balance function is found to be compatible with those reported by a previous measurement in Pb--Pb collisions.

We search for new massive scalar particles X and Y through the resonant process X $\to$ YH $\to$$\mathrm{b\bar{b}b\bar{b}}$, where H is the standard model Higgs boson. Data from CERN LHC proton-proton collisions are used, collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV in 2016-2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. The search is performed in mass ranges of 0.9-4 TeV for X and 60-600 GeV for Y, where both Y and H are reconstructed as Lorentz-boosted single large-area jets. The results are interpreted in the context of the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model and also in an extension of the standard model with two additional singlet scalar fields. The 95% confidence level upper limits for the production cross section vary between 0.1 and 150 fb depending on the X and Y masses, and represent a significant improvement over results from previous searches.

We present the first direct search for exotic Higgs boson decays H $\to$$\mathcal{A}\mathcal{A}$, $\mathcal{A}$$\to$$\gamma\gamma$ in events with two photonlike objects. The hypothetical particle $\mathcal{A}$ is a low-mass spin-0 particle decaying promptly to a merged diphoton reconstructed as a single photonlike object. We analyze the data collected by the CMS experiment at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 136 fb$^{-1}$. No excess above the estimated background is found. We set upper limits on the branching fraction $\mathcal{B}$(H $\to$$\mathcal{A}\mathcal{A}$$\to$ 4$\gamma$) of (0.9-3.3) $\times$ 10$^{-3}$ at 95% confidence level for masses of $\mathcal{A}$ in the range 0.1-1.2 GeV.

A search for the nonresonant production of Higgs boson pairs (HH) via gluon-gluon and vector boson fusion processes in final states with two bottom quarks and two tau leptons is presented. The search uses data from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Events in which at least one tau lepton decays hadronically are considered and multiple machine learning techniques are used to identify and extract the signal. The data are found to be consistent, within uncertainties, with the standard model (SM) predictions. Upper limits on the HH production cross section are set to constrain the parameter space for anomalous Higgs boson couplings. The observed (expected) upper limit at 95% confidence level corresponds to 3.3 (5.2) times the SM prediction for the inclusive HH cross section and to 124 (154) times the SM prediction for the vector boson fusion HH cross section. At 95% confidence level, the Higgs field self-coupling is constrained to be within -1.7 and 8.7 times the SM expectation, and the coupling of two Higgs bosons to two vector bosons is constrained to be within -0.4 and 2.6 times the SM expectation.

A measurement of the inclusive cross section of top quark pair production in association with a Z boson using proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the LHC is performed. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 77.5 fb$^{-1}$, collected by the CMS experiment during 2016 and 2017. The measurement is performed using final states containing three or four charged leptons (electrons or muons), and the Z boson is detected through its decay to an oppositely charged lepton pair. The production cross section is measured to be $\sigma(\mathrm{t\bar{t}Z})$ $=$ 0.95 $\pm$ 0.05 (stat) $\pm$ 0.06 (syst) pb. For the first time, differential cross sections are measured as functions of the transverse momentum of the Z boson and the angular distribution of the negatively charged lepton from the Z boson decay. The most stringent direct limits to date on the anomalous couplings of the top quark to the Z boson are presented, including constraints on the Wilson coefficients in the framework of the standard model effective field theory.

Evidence is reported for electroweak (EW) vector boson scattering in the decay channel $\ell\nu$qq of two weak vector bosons WV (V = W or Z), produced in association with two parton jets. The search uses a data set of proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV collected with the CMS detector during 2016-2018 with an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Events are selected requiring one lepton (electron or muon), moderate missing transverse momentum, two jets with a large pseudorapidity separation and a large dijet invariant mass, and a signature consistent with the hadronic decay of a W/Z boson. The cross section is computed in a fiducial phase space defined at parton level requiring all parton transverse momenta $p_\mathrm{T}$$\gt$ 10 GeV and at least one pair of outgoing partons with invariant mass $m_\mathrm{qq}$$\gt$ 100 GeV. The measured and expected EW WV production cross sections are 1.90 $^{+0.53}_{-0.46}$ pb and 2.23 $^{+0.08}_{-0.11}$ (scale) $\pm$ 0.05 (PDF) pb, respectively, where PDF is the parton distribution function. The observed EW signal strength is $m_\mathrm{EW}$ = 0.85 $\pm$ 0.12 (stat) $^{+0.19}_{-0.17}$ (syst), corresponding to a signal significance of 4.4 standard deviations with 5.1 expected, and it is measured keeping the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) associated diboson production fixed to the standard model prediction. This is the first evidence of vector boson scattering in the $\ell\nu$qq decay channel at LHC. The simultaneous measurement of the EW and QCD associated diboson production agrees with the standard model prediction.

The dependence of the ratio between the B$_\mathrm{s}^0$ and B$^+$ hadron production fractions, $f_\mathrm{s} / f_\mathrm{u}$, on the transverse momentum ($p_\mathrm{T}$) and rapidity of the B mesons is studied using the decay channels B$_\mathrm{s}^0$$\to$ J$/\psi\,\phi$ and B$^+$$\to$ J$/\psi$ K$^+$. The analysis uses a data sample of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment in 2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 61.6 fb$^{-1}$. The $f_\mathrm{s} / f_\mathrm{u}$ ratio is observed to depend on the B $p_\mathrm{T}$ and to be consistent with becoming asymptotically constant at large $p_\mathrm{T}$. No rapidity dependence is observed. The ratio of the B$^0$ to B$^+$ hadron production fractions, $f_\mathrm{d} / f_\mathrm{u}$, measured using the B$^0$$\to$ J$/\psi$ K$^{*0}$ decay channel, is found to be consistent with unity and independent of $p_\mathrm{T}$ and rapidity, as expected from isospin invariance.