This Letter presents a constraint on the total width of the Higgs boson ($\Gamma_H$) using a combined measurement of on-shell Higgs boson production and the production of four top quarks, which involves contributions from off-shell Higgs boson-mediated processes. This method relies on the assumption that the tree-level Higgs-top Yukawa coupling strength is the same for on-shell and off-shell Higgs boson production processes, thereby avoiding any assumptions about the relationship between on-shell and off-shell gluon fusion Higgs production rates, which were central to previous measurements. The result is based on up to 140 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The observed (expected) 95% confidence level upper limit on $\Gamma_H$ is 450 MeV (75 MeV). Additionally, considering the constraint on the Higgs-top Yukawa coupling from loop-induced Higgs boson production and decay processes further yields an observed (expected) upper limit of 160 MeV (55 MeV).
This Letter describes a model-independent search for the production of new resonances in photon + jet events using 20 inverse fb of proton--proton LHC data recorded with the ATLAS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The photon + jet mass distribution is compared to a background model fit from data; no significant deviation from the background-only hypothesis is found. Limits are set at 95% credibility level on generic Gaussian-shaped signals and two benchmark phenomena beyond the Standard Model: non-thermal quantum black holes and excited quarks. Non-thermal quantum black holes are excluded below masses of 4.6 TeV and excited quarks are excluded below masses of 3.5 TeV.
The production of a $W$ boson decaying to $e\nu$ or $\mu\nu$ in association with a $W$ or $Z$ boson decaying to two jets is studied using $4.6 \mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton--proton collision data at $\sqrt{\rm{s}} = 7$ TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The combined $WW+WZ$ cross section is measured with a significance of 3.4$\sigma$ and is found to be $68 \pm 7 \ \mathrm{(stat.)} \pm 19 \ \mathrm{(syst.)} \ pb$, in agreement with the Standard Model expectation of $61.1 \pm 2.2 \ \mathrm{pb}$. The distribution of the transverse momentum of the dijet system is used to set limits on anomalous contributions to the triple gauge coupling vertices and on parameters of an effective-field-theory model.
This letter documents a search for flavour-changing neutral currents (FCNCs), which are strongly suppressed in the Standard Model, in events with a photon and a top quark with the ATLAS detector. The analysis uses data collected in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV during Run 2 of the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. Both FCNC top-quark production and decay are considered. The final state consists of a charged lepton, missing transverse momentum, a $b$-tagged jet, one high-momentum photon and possibly additional jets. A multiclass deep neural network is used to classify events either as signal in one of the two categories, FCNC production or decay, or as background. No significant excess of events over the background prediction is observed and 95% CL upper limits are placed on the strength of left- and right-handed FCNC interactions. The 95% CL bounds on the branching fractions for the FCNC top-quark decays, estimated from both top-quark production and decay, are $\mathcal{B}(t\rightarrow u\gamma) < 0.85 \times 10^{-5}$ and $\mathcal{B}(t\to c\gamma) < 4.2 \times 10^{-5}$ for a left-handed $tq\gamma$ coupling, and $\mathcal{B}(t\to u\gamma) < 1.2 \times 10^{-5}$ and $\mathcal{B}(t\to c\gamma) < 4.5 \times 10^{-5}$ for a right-handed coupling.
A search for ZZ and ZH production in the $\mathrm{b\bar{b}b\bar{b}}$ final state is presented, where H is the standard model (SM) Higgs boson. The search uses an event sample of proton-proton collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 133 fb$^{-1}$ collected at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The analysis introduces several novel techniques for deriving and validating a multi-dimensional background model based on control samples in data. A multiclass multivariate classifier customized for the $\mathrm{b\bar{b}b\bar{b}}$ final state is developed to derive the background model and extract the signal. The data are found to be consistent, within uncertainties, with the SM predictions. The observed (expected) upper limits at 95% confidence level are found to be 3.8 (3.8) and 5.0 (2.9) times the SM prediction for the ZZ and ZH production cross sections, respectively.
The polarizations of prompt and non-prompt J$/\psi$ and $\psi$(2S) mesons are measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV, using data samples collected by the CMS experiment in 2017 and 2018, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 103.3 fb$^{-1}$. Based on the analysis of the dimuon decay angular distributions in the helicity frame, the polar anisotropy, $\lambda_\theta$, is measured as a function of the transverse momentum, $p_\mathrm{T}$, of the charmonium states, in the 25-120 and 20-100 GeV ranges for the J$/\psi$ and $\psi$(2S), respectively. The non-prompt polarizations agree with predictions based on the hypothesis that, for $p_\mathrm{T}$$\gtrsim$ 25 GeV, the non-prompt J$/\psi$ and $\psi$(2S) are predominantly produced in two-body B meson decays. The prompt results clearly exclude strong transverse polarizations, even for $p_\mathrm{T}$ exceeding 30 times the J$/\psi$ mass, where $\lambda_\theta$ tends to an asymptotic value around 0.3. Taken together with previous measurements, by CMS and LHCb at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV, the prompt polarizations show a significant variation with $p_\mathrm{T}$, at low $p_\mathrm{T}$.
The J/$\psi$$\to$$\mu^+\mu^-\mu^+\mu^-$ decay has been observed with a statistical significance in excess of five standard deviations. The analysis is based on an event sample of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment in 2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 33.6 fb$^{-1}$. Normalizing to the J/$\psi$$\to$$\mu^+\mu^-$ decay mode leads to a branching fraction [10.1 $^{+3.3}_{-2.7}$ (stat) $\pm$ 0.4 (syst)] $\times$ 10$^{-7}$, a value that is consistent with the standard model prediction.
The first observation of the concurrent production of two J/$\psi$ mesons in proton-nucleus collisions is presented. The analysis is based on a proton-lead (pPb) data sample recorded at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 8.16 TeV by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 174.6 nb$^{-1}$. The two J/$\psi$ mesons are reconstructed in their $\mu^+\mu^-$ decay channels with transverse momenta $p_\mathrm{T}$$\gt$ 6.5 GeV and rapidity $\lvert y \rvert$$\lt$ 2.4. Events where one of the J/$\psi$ mesons is reconstructed in the dielectron channel are also considered in the search. The pPb $\to$ J/$\psi$J/$\psi$ + X process is observed with a significance of 5.3 standard deviations. The measured inclusive fiducial cross section, using the four-muon channel alone, is $\sigma$(pPb $\to$ J/$\psi$J/$\psi$ + X) = 22.0 $\pm$ 8.9 (stat) $\pm$ 1.5 (syst) nb. A fit of the data to the expected rapidity separation for pairs of J/$\psi$ mesons produced in single (SPS) and double (DPS) parton scatterings yields $\sigma^{\mathrm{pPb} \to \mathrm{J}/\psi\mathrm{J}/\psi +\mathrm{X}}_\text{SPS}$ = 16.5 $\pm$ 10.8 (stat) $\pm$ 0.1 (syst) nb and $\sigma^{\mathrm{pPb} \to \mathrm{J}/\psi\mathrm{J}/\psi + \mathrm{X}}_\text{DPS}$ = 5.4 $\pm$ 6.2 (stat) $\pm$ 0.4 (syst) nb, respectively. This latter result can be transformed into a lower bound on the effective DPS cross section, closely related to the squared average interparton transverse separation in the collision, of $\sigma_\text{eff}$$\gt$ 1.0 mb at 95% confidence level.
Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections of Higgs boson production in the ${H \rightarrow ZZ ^{*}\rightarrow 4\ell}$ decay channel are presented. The cross sections are determined within a fiducial phase space and corrected for detection efficiency and resolution effects. They are based on 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collision data, produced at $\sqrt{s}$=8 TeV centre-of-mass energy at the LHC and recorded by the ATLAS detector. The differential measurements are performed in bins of transverse momentum and rapidity of the four-lepton system, the invariant mass of the subleading lepton pair and the decay angle of the leading lepton pair with respect to the beam line in the four-lepton rest frame, as well as the number of jets and the transverse momentum of the leading jet. The measured cross sections are compared to selected theoretical calculations of the Standard Model expectations. No significant deviation from any of the tested predictions is found.
Diboson production in association with jets is studied in the fully leptonic final states, pp $\to$ (Z$\gamma^*$)(Z/$\gamma^*$) + jets $\to$ 2$\ell$2$\ell'$ + jets, ($\ell,\ell'$ = e or $\mu$) in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$ collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. Differential distributions and normalized differential cross sections are measured as a function of jet multiplicity, transverse momentum $p_\mathrm{T}$, pseudorapidity $\eta$, invariant mass and $\Delta\eta$ of the highest-$p_\mathrm{T}$ and second-highest-$p_\mathrm{T}$ jets, and as a function of invariant mass of the four-lepton system for events with various jet multiplicities. These differential cross sections are compared with theoretical predictions that mostly agree with the experimental data. However, in a few regions we observe discrepancies between the predicted and measured values. Further improvement of the predictions is required to describe the ZZ + jets production in the whole phase space.
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