For the first time, a search for the rare decay of the W boson to three charged pions has been performed. Proton-proton collision data recorded by the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 77.3 fb$^{-1}$, have been analyzed. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation. An upper limit of 1.01 $\times$ 10$^{-6}$ is set at 95% confidence level on the branching fraction of the W boson to three charged pions. This provides a strong motivation for theoretical calculations of this branching fraction.
A search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a W or a Z boson and decaying a pair of $\tau$ leptons is performed. A data sample of proton-proton collisions collected at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC is used, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. The signal strength is measured relative to the expectation for the standard model Higgs boson, yielding $\mu =$ 2.5 $^{+1.4} _{-1.3}$. These results are combined with earlier CMS measurements targeting Higgs boson decays to a pair of $\tau$ leptons, performed with the same data set in the gluon fusion and vector boson fusion production modes. The combined signal strength is $\mu =$ 1.24 $^{+0.29} _{-0.27}$ (1.00 $^{+0.24} _{-0.23}$ expected), and the observed significance is 5.5 standard deviations (4.8 expected) for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV.
A search is performed for the rare decay W$^\pm\to\pi^\pm\gamma$ in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV. Data corresponding to an on W integrated luminosity of 137 fb$^{-1}$ were collected during 2016 to 2018 with the CMS detector. This analysis exploits a novel search strategy based on W boson production in top quark pair events. An inclusive search for the W$^\pm\to\pi^\pm\gamma$ decay is not optimal at the LHC because of the high trigger thresholds. Instead, a trigger selection is exploited in which the W boson originating from one of the top quarks is used to tag the event in a leptonic decay. The W boson emerging from the other top quark is used to search for the W$^\pm\to\pi^\pm\gamma$ signature. Such decays are characterized by an isolated track pointing to a large energy deposit, and by an isolated photon of large transverse momentum. The presence of b quark jets reduces the background from the hadronization of light-flavor quarks and gluons. The W$^\pm\to\pi^\pm\gamma$ decay is not observed. An upper exclusion limit is set to this branching fraction, corresponding to 1.50 $\times$ 10$^{-5}$ at 95% confidence level, whereas the expected upper limit exclusion limit is 0.85 $^{+0.52}_{-0.29}$ $\times$ 10$^{-5}$.
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