The production of a $Z$ boson and a photon in association with a high-mass dijet system is studied using 20.2fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider. Final states with a photon and a Z boson decaying into a pair of either electrons, muons, or neutrinos are analysed. Electroweak and total $pp \to Z\gamma j j$ cross-sections are extracted in two fiducial regions with different sensitivities to electroweak production processes. Quartic couplings of vector bosons are studied in regions of phase space with an enhanced contribution from pure electroweak production, sensitive to vector-boson scattering processes $VV \to Z\gamma$. No deviations from Standard Model predictions are observed and constraints are placed on anomalous couplings parameterized by higher-dimensional operators using effective field theory.
The measured fiducial sections of Zyjj in the charged-leptonic channel. In the measured cross-sections, the first uncertainty is the statistical uncertainty, and the second one is the combined systematic uncertainty.
95% confidence level cross-section upper limits on the $Z\gamma jj$ processes in both charged-leptonic and neutrino channels. The reconstruction efficiencies are provided as C-factors.
95% confidence level interval (expected and observed) on aQGC parameters (VBFNLO formalism) provided for different values of unitarity scale (Form Factor).