The normalised differential top quark-antiquark production cross section is measured as a function of the jet multiplicity in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV at the LHC with the CMS detector. The measurement is performed in both the dilepton and lepton + jets decay channels using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 inverse femtobarns. Using a procedure to associate jets to decay products of the top quarks, the differential cross section of the t t-bar production is determined as a function of the additional jet multiplicity in the lepton + jets channel. Furthermore, the fraction of events with no additional jets is measured in the dilepton channel, as a function of the threshold on the jet transverse momentum. The measurements are compared with predictions from perturbative quantum chromodynamics and no significant deviations are observed.
The first observation of the associated production of a single top quark and a W boson is presented. The analysis is based on a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 12.2 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Events with two leptons and a jet originating from a b quark are selected. A multivariate analysis based on kinematic and topological properties is used to separate the signal from the dominant t t-bar background. An excess consistent with the signal hypothesis is observed, with a significance which corresponds to 6.1 standard deviations above a background-only hypothesis. The measured production cross section is 23.4 +- 5.4 pb, in agreement with the standard model prediction.
Measurements of differential cross sections are presented for the production of a Z boson and at least one hadronic jet in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, recorded by the CMS detector, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 inverse femtobarns. The jet multiplicity distribution is measured for up to six jets. The differential cross sections are measured as a function of jet transverse momentum and pseudorapidity for the four highest transverse momentum jets. The distribution of the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta is also measured as a function of the jet multiplicity. The measurements are compared with theoretical predictions at leading and next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD.
A search for the pair production of heavy fermionic partners of the top quark with charge 5/3 (X$_{5/3}$) is performed in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The data sample analyzed corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. The X$_{5/3}$ quark is assumed always to decay into a top quark and a W boson. Both the right-handed and left-handed X$_{5/3}$ couplings to the W boson are considered. Final states with either a pair of same-sign leptons or a single lepton are studied. No significant excess of events is observed above the expected standard model background. Lower limits at 95% confidence level on the X$_{5/3}$ quark mass are set at 1.33 and 1.30 TeV respectively for the case of right-handed and left-handed couplings to W bosons in a combination of the same-sign dilepton and single-lepton final states.
A search for Higgs bosons that decay into a bottom quark-antiquark pair and are accompanied by at least one additional bottom quark is performed with the CMS detector. The data analyzed were recorded in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.7 fb$^{-1}$. The final state considered in this analysis is particularly sensitive to signatures of a Higgs sector beyond the standard model, as predicted in the generic class of two Higgs doublet models (2HDMs). No signal above the standard model background expectation is observed. Stringent upper limits on the cross section times branching fraction are set for Higgs bosons with masses up to 1300 GeV. The results are interpreted within several MSSM and 2HDM scenarios.
A search for supersymmetry is presented based on events with at least one photon, jets, and large missing transverse momentum produced in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$ and were recorded at the LHC with the CMS detector in 2016. The analysis characterizes signal-like events by categorizing the data into various signal regions based on the number of jets, the number of b-tagged jets, and the missing transverse momentum. No significant excess of events is observed with respect to the expectations from standard model processes. Limits are placed on the gluino and top squark pair production cross sections using several simplified models of supersymmetric particle production with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. Depending on the model and the mass of the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle, the production of gluinos with masses as large as 2120 GeV and the production of top squarks with masses as large as 1230 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level.
The differential cross-section for pair production of top quarks with high transverse momentum is measured in 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The measurement is performed for $t\bar{t}$ events in the lepton+jets channel. The cross-section is reported as a function of the hadronically decaying top quark transverse momentum for values above 300 GeV. The hadronically decaying top quark is reconstructed as an anti-$k_t$ jet with radius parameter $R=1.0$ and identified with jet substructure techniques. The observed yield is corrected for detector effects to obtain a cross-section at particle level in a fiducial region close to the event selection. A parton-level cross-section extrapolated to the full phase space is also reported for top quarks with transverse momentum above 300 GeV. The predictions of a majority of next-to-leading-order and leading-order matrix-element Monte Carlo generators are found to agree with the measured cross-sections.
A measurement of the cross section for the production of an isolated photon in association with jets in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV is presented. Photons are reconstructed in the pseudorapidity range $|\eta^{\gamma}| \lt 1.37$ and with a transverse energy $E_T^\gamma$ > 25 GeV. Jets are reconstructed in the rapidity range $|y^{jet}|$ < 4.4 and with a transverse momentum $p_T^{jet}$ > 20 GeV. The differential cross section $d\sigma/dE_T^\gamma$ is measured, as a function of the photon transverse energy, for three different rapidity ranges of the leading-$p_T$ jet: $|y^{jet}| < 1.2, 1.2 \le |y^{jet}|$ < 2.8 and 2.8 $\le |y^{jet}|$ < 4.4. For each rapidity configuration the same-sign $(\eta^{\gamma}y^{jet}\ge 0)$ and opposite-sign $(\eta^{\gamma}y^{jet}<0)$ cases are studied separately. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 37 pb$^{-1}$, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations are found to be in fair agreement with the data, except for $E_T^{\gamma} \lt 45$ GeV, where the theoretical predictions overestimate the measured cross sections.
The results of a search for charged Higgs bosons decaying to a $\tau$ lepton and a neutrino, $H^{\pm} \rightarrow \tau^{\pm} \nu$, are presented. The analysis is based on 19.5 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Charged Higgs bosons are searched for in events consistent with top-quark pair production or in associated production with a top quark. The final state is characterised by the presence of a hadronic $\tau$ decay, missing transverse momentum, $b$-tagged jets, a hadronically decaying $W$ boson, and the absence of any isolated electrons or muons with high transverse momenta. The data are consistent with the expected background from Standard Model processes. A statistical analysis leads to 95\% confidence-level upper limits on the product of branching ratios $ {\cal B}(t\rightarrow bH^\pm) \times {\cal B} (H^\pm\rightarrow \tau^{\pm}\nu) $, between 0.23% and 1.3% for charged Higgs boson masses in the range 80-160 GeV. It also leads to 95% confidence-level upper limits on the production cross section times branching ratio, $\sigma(pp \rightarrow tH^{\pm} + X) \times {\cal B}(H^{\pm} \rightarrow \tau^{\pm} \nu)$, between 0.76 pb and 4.5 fb, for charged Higgs boson masses ranging from 180 GeV to 1000 GeV. In the context of different scenarios of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, these results exclude nearly all values of $\tan\beta$ above one for charged Higgs boson masses between 80 GeV and 160 GeV, and exclude a region of parameter space with high $\tan\beta$ for $H^{\pm}$ masses between 200 GeV and 250 GeV.
Double-differential three-jet production cross-sections are measured in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are presented as a function of the three-jet mass $(m_{jjj})$, in bins of the sum of the absolute rapidity separations between the three leading jets $(|Y^\ast|)$. Invariant masses extending up to 5 TeV are reached for $8< |Y^\ast| < 10$. These measurements use a sample of data recorded using the ATLAS detector in 2011, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.51 fb$^{-1}$. Jets are identified using the anti-$k_t$ algorithm with two different jet radius parameters, R=0.4 and R=0.6. The dominant uncertainty in these measurements comes from the jet energy scale. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations corrected to account for non-perturbative effects are compared to the measurements. Good agreement is found between the data and the theoretical predictions based on most of the available sets of parton distribution functions, over the full kinematic range, covering almost seven orders of magnitude in the measured cross-section values.
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