The WZ production cross section is measured by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC in proton-proton collision data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of 4.9 inverse femtobarns collected at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV, and 19.6 inverse femtobarns at sqrt(s)= 8 TeV. The measurements are performed using the fully-leptonic WZ decay modes with electrons and muons in the final state. The measured cross sections for 71 < m[Z] < 111 GeV are sigma(pp to WZ; sqrt(s)= 7 TeV) = 20.14 +/- 1.32 (stat) +/- 1.13 (syst) +/- 0.44 (lumi) pb and sigma(pp to WZ; sqrt(s)= 8 TeV) = 24.09 +/- 0.87 (stat) +/- 1.62 (syst) +/- 0.63 (lumi) pb. Differential cross sections with respect to the Z boson pt, the leading jet pt, and the number of jets are obtained using the sqrt(s)= 8 TeV data. The results are consistent with standard model predictions and constraints on anomalous triple gauge couplings are obtained.
Cross sections for the production of a Z boson in association with jets in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 8 TeV are measured using a data sample collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC corresponding to 19.6 inverse femtobarns. Differential cross sections are presented as functions of up to three observables that describe the jet kinematics and the jet activity. Correlations between the azimuthal directions and the rapidities of the jets and the Z boson are studied in detail. The predictions of a number of multileg generators with leading or next-to-leading order accuracy are compared with the measurements. The comparison shows the importance of including multi-parton contributions in the matrix elements and the improvement in the predictions when next-to-leading order terms are included.
Inclusive jet spectra from pp and PbPb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV, collected with the CMS detector at the LHC, are presented. Jets are reconstructed with three different distance parameters (R = 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4) for transverse momentum (pT) greater than 70 GeV and pseudorapidity abs(eta) < 2. Next-to-leading-order quantum chromodynamic calculations with non-perturbative corrections are found to over-predict jet production cross sections in pp for small distance parameters. The jet nuclear modification factors for PbPb compared to pp collisions, show a steady decrease from peripheral to central events, along with a weak dependence on the jet pT. They are found to be independent of the distance parameter in the measured kinematic range.
Interactions between jets and the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy ion collisions are studied via the angular distributions of summed charged-particle transverse momenta (pt) with respect to both the leading and subleading jet axes in high-pt dijet events. The contributions of charged particles in different momentum ranges to the overall event pt balance are decomposed into short-range jet peaks and a long-range azimuthal asymmetry in charged-particle pt. The results for PbPb collisions are compared to those in pp collisions using data collected in 2011 and 2013, at collision energy sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV with integrated luminosities of 166 inverse microbarns and 5.3 inverse picobarns, respectively, by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Measurements are presented as functions of PbPb collision centrality, charged-particle pt, relative azimuth, and radial distance from the jet axis for balanced and unbalanced dijets.
Measurements of two- and multi-particle angular correlations in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 5, 7, and 13 TeV are presented as a function of charged-particle multiplicity. The data, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 1.0 inverse picobarn (5 TeV), 6.2 inverse picobarns (7 TeV), and 0.7 inverse picobarns (13 TeV), were collected using the CMS detector at the LHC. The second-order (v[2]) and third-order (v[3]) azimuthal anisotropy harmonics of unidentified charged particles, as well as v[2] of K0 short and Lambda/anti-Lambda particles, are extracted from long-range two-particle correlations as functions of particle multiplicity and transverse momentum. For high-multiplicity pp events, a mass ordering is observed for the v[2] values of charged hadrons (mostly pions), K0 short, and Lambda/anti-Lambda, with lighter particle species exhibiting a stronger azimuthal anisotropy signal below pt of about 2 GeV/c. For 13 TeV data, the v[2] signals are also extracted from four- and six-particle correlations for the first time in pp collisions, with comparable magnitude to those from two-particle correlations. These observations are similar to those seen in pPb and PbPb collisions, and support the interpretation of a collective origin for the observed long-range correlations in high-multiplicity pp collisions.
The production of Z bosons in pPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 5.02 TeV is studied by the CMS experiment via the electron and muon decay channels. The inclusive cross section is compared to pp collision predictions, and found to scale with the number of elementary nucleon-nucleon collisions. The differential cross sections as a function of the Z boson rapidity and transverse momentum are measured. Though they are found to be consistent within uncertainty with theoretical predictions both with and without nuclear effects, the forward-backward asymmetry suggests the presence of nuclear effects at large rapidities. These results provide new data for constraining nuclear parton distribution functions.
A search for exclusive or quasi-exclusive gamma gamma to W+W- production, via pp to p(*) W+W- p(*) to p(*) mu+/- e-/+ at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, is reported using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. Events are selected by requiring the presence of an electron-muon pair with large transverse momentum pt(mu+/- e-/+) > 30 GeV, and no associated charged particles detected from the same vertex. The 8 TeV results are combined with the previous 7 TeV results (obtained for 5.05 inverse femtobarns of data). In the signal region, 13 (2) events are observed over an expected background of 3.9 +/- 0.6 (0.84 +/-0.15) events for 8 (7) TeV, resulting in a combined excess of 3.4 standard deviations over the background-only hypothesis. The observed yields and kinematic distributions are compatible with the standard model prediction for exclusive and quasi-exclusive gamma gamma to W+W- production. Upper limits on the anomalous quartic gauge coupling operators a[W;0,C] (dimension-6) and f[M0,1,2,3] (dimension-8), the most stringent to date, are derived from the measured dilepton transverse momentum spectrum.
A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t t-bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95% confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg to X) B(X to HH to b b-bar b b-bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with a mass scale Lambda[R] = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV.
A measurement is presented of the cross section for the electroweak production of a W boson in association with two jets in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The data set was collected with the CMS detector and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 19.3 inverse femtobarns. The measured fiducial cross section for W bosons decaying to electrons or muons and for pT(j1) > 60 GeV, pT(j2) > 50 GeV, |eta(j)| < 4.7, and m(jj) > 1000 GeV is 0.42 +/- 0.04 (stat) +/- 0.09 (syst) +/- 0.01 (lumi) pb. This result is consistent with the standard model leading-order prediction of 0.50 +/- 0.02 (scale) +/- 0.02 (PDF) pb obtained with MADGRAPH5_aMC@NLO 2.1 interfaced to PYTHIA 6.4. This is the first cross section measurement for this process.
A search for new physics is performed based on all-hadronic events with large missing transverse momentum produced in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV. The data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.3 inverse femtobarns, was collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC in 2015. The data are examined in search regions of jet multiplicity, tagged bottom quark jet multiplicity, missing transverse momentum, and the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta. The observed numbers of events in all search regions are found to be consistent with the expectations from standard model processes. Exclusion limits are presented for simplified supersymmetric models of gluino pair production. Depending on the assumed gluino decay mechanism, and for a massless, weakly interacting, lightest neutralino, lower limits on the gluino mass from 1440 to 1600 GeV are obtained, significantly extending previous limits.
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