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Search for a heavy resonance decaying into a Z and a Higgs boson in events with an energetic jet and two electrons, two muons, or missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

The CMS collaboration Hayrapetyan, Aram ; Tumasyan, Armen ; Adam, Wolfgang ; et al.
JHEP 02 (2025) 089, 2025.
Inspire Record 2847311 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.153397

A search is presented for a heavy resonance decaying into a Z boson and a Higgs (H) boson. The analysis is based on data from proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$, recorded with the CMS experiment in the years 2016-2018. Resonance masses between 1.4 and 5 TeV are considered, resulting in large transverse momenta of the Z and H bosons. Final states that result from Z boson decays to pairs of electrons, muons, or neutrinos are considered. The H boson is reconstructed as a single large-radius jet, recoiling against the Z boson. Machine-learning flavour-tagging techniques are employed to identify decays of a Lorentz-boosted H boson into pairs of charm or bottom quarks, or into four quarks via the intermediate H $\to$ WW* and ZZ* decays. The analysis targets H boson decays that were not generally included in previous searches using the H $\to$$\mathrm{b\bar{b}}$ channel. Compared with previous analyses, the sensitivity for high resonance masses is improved significantly in the channel where at most one b quark is tagged.

16 data tables

The product of signal acceptance and efficiency for signal events as a function of $m_{Z'}$ for the charged-lepton and neutrino channels in the SR. The efficiency is calculated with respect to Z boson decays to charged leptons and neutrinos for the charged-lepton and neutrino channels, respectively. For comparison, the results from the $\leq$ 1 b category of the previous CMS search in the ZH channel are shown as dashed lines.

The product of signal acceptance and efficiency for signal events as a function of $m_{Z'}$ for the charged-lepton and neutrino channels in the SR. The efficiency is calculated with respect to Z boson decays to charged leptons and neutrinos for the charged-lepton and neutrino channels, respectively. For comparison, the results from the $\leq$ 1 b category of the previous CMS search in the ZH channel are shown as dashed lines.

Distributions in $m_{Z'}^{rec}$ for data in the SRs, together with fits of the background functions under the background-only hypothesis for the muon channel. The number of observed events in each bin is divided by the bin width. The signal predictions are shown for different Z' boson masses, normalized to an arbitrary cross section of 1 fb. In the panels below the distributions, the ratios of data to the background function are displayed. The shaded green areas represent the statistical uncertainty from the fit. The $\chi^2$ values per number of degrees of freedom ($\chi^2$/n.d.f.) and the corresponding $p$-values are provided for each fit.

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Search for new heavy resonances decaying to WW, WZ, ZZ, WH, or ZH boson pairs in the all-jets final state in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

The CMS collaboration Tumasyan, Armen ; Adam, Wolfgang ; Andrejkovic, Janik Walter ; et al.
Phys.Lett.B 844 (2023) 137813, 2023.
Inspire Record 2159368 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.132485

A search for new heavy resonances decaying to WW, WZ, ZZ, WH, or ZH boson pairs in the all-jets final state is presented. The analysis is based on proton-proton collision data recorded by the CMS detector in 2016-2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. The search is sensitive to resonances with masses between 1.3 and 6 TeV, decaying to bosons that are highly Lorentz-boosted such that each of the bosons forms a single large-radius jet. Machine learning techniques are employed to identify such jets. No significant excess over the estimated standard model background is observed. A maximum local significance of 3.6 standard deviations, corresponding to a global significance of 2.3 standard deviations, is observed at masses of 2.1 and 2.9 TeV. In a heavy vector triplet model, spin-1 Z' and W' resonances with masses below 4.8 TeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level (CL). These limits are the most stringent to date. In a bulk graviton model, spin-2 gravitons and spin-0 radions with masses below 1.4 and 2.7 TeV, respectively, are excluded at 95% CL. Production of heavy resonances through vector boson fusion is constrained with upper cross section limits at 95% CL as low as 0.1 fb.

6 data tables

Observed and expected 95% CL upper limits on the product of the production cross section ($\sigma$) and the branching fraction, obtained after combining all categories with 138 $\mathrm{fb}^{−1}$ of data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV for R to VV signal.

Observed and expected 95% CL upper limits on the product of the production cross section ($\sigma$) and the branching fraction, obtained after combining all categories with 138 $\mathrm{fb}^{−1}$ of data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV for $\mathrm{G}_\mathrm{bulk}$ to $VV$ signal.

Observed and expected 95% CL upper limits on the product of the production cross section ($\sigma$) and the branching fraction, obtained after combining all categories with 138 $\mathrm{fb}^{−1}$ of data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV for $\mathrm{V'}$ to $VV$ + $VH$ signal in HVT model B.

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