The first measurements of production cross sections of polarized same-sign W$^\pm$W$^\pm$ boson pairs in proton-proton collisions are reported. The measurements are based on a data sample collected with the CMS detector at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb$^{-1}$. Events are selected by requiring exactly two same-sign leptons, electrons or muons, moderate missing transverse momentum, and two jets with a large rapidity separation and a large dijet mass to enhance the contribution of same-sign W$^\pm$W$^\pm$ scattering events. An observed (expected) 95% confidence level upper limit of 1.17 (0.88) fb is set on the production cross section for longitudinally polarized same-sign W$^\pm$W$^\pm$ boson pairs. The electroweak production of same-sign W$^\pm$W$^\pm$ boson pairs with at least one of the W bosons longitudinally polarized is measured with an observed (expected) significance of 2.3 (3.1) standard deviations.
Systematic uncertainties of the $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}$ and $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{X}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}$, and $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{X}}$ and $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}$ cross section measurements in units of percent.
Expected yields from various SM processes and observed data events in WW SR. The combination of the statistical and systematic uncertainties is shown. The expected yields are shown with their best fit normalizations from the simultaneous fit for the $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}$ and $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{X}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}$ cross sections. The $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}$ and $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}$ yields are obtained from the $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{X}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}$ yield assuming the SM prediction for the ratio of the yields. The tVx background yield includes the contributions from tt$\mathrm{V}$ and tZq processes.
Measured fiducial cross sections for the $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}$ and $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{X}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}$ processes, and for the $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{L}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{X}}$ and $\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}\mathrm{W}^\pm_{\mathrm{T}}$ processes for the helicity eigenstates defined in the WW center-of-mass frame. The combination of the statistical and systematic uncertainties is shown. $\mathcal{B}$ is the branching fraction for $\mathrm{W}\mathrm{W} \rightarrow \ell \nu \ell' \nu$. The fiducial region is defined by requiring two same-sign leptons with $p_{T}>20$, $|\eta|<2.5$, and $m_{ll}>20$, and two jets with $m_{jj}>500$ and $|\Delta \eta_{jj}|>2.5$. The jets at generator level are clustered from stable particles, excluding neutrinos, using the anti-kt clustering algorithm with R = 0.4, and are required to have $p_{T}>50$ and $|\eta|<4.7$. The jets within $\Delta R<0.4$ of the selected charged leptons are not included. The theoretical predictions including the $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_{s}\alpha^6)$ and $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^7)$ corrections to the \MGvATNLO LO cross sections, as described in arXiv:2009.09429, are also shown. The theoretical uncertainties include statistical, PDF, and LO scale uncertainties.
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