A search for the central exclusive production of top quark-antiquark pairs ($\mathrm{t\bar{t}}$) is performed for the first time using proton-tagged events in proton-proton collisions at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 29.4 fb$^{-1}$. The $\mathrm{t\bar{t}}$ decay products are reconstructed using the central CMS detector, while forward protons are measured in the CMS-TOTEM precision proton spectrometer. An observed (expected) upper bound on the production cross section of 0.59 (1.14) pb is set at 95% confidence level, for collisions of protons with fractional momentum losses between 2 and 20%.
This paper describes a measurement of light-by-light scattering based on Pb+Pb collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment during Run 2 of the LHC. The study uses $2.2$ nb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity collected in 2015 and 2018 at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=5.02$ TeV. Light-by-light scattering candidates are selected in events with two photons produced exclusively, each with transverse energy $E_{\mathrm{T}}^{\gamma} > 2.5$ GeV, pseudorapidity $|\eta_{\gamma}| < 2.37$, diphoton invariant mass $m_{\gamma\gamma} > 5$ GeV, and with small diphoton transverse momentum and diphoton acoplanarity. The integrated and differential fiducial cross sections are measured and compared with theoretical predictions. The diphoton invariant mass distribution is used to set limits on the production of axion-like particles. This result provides the most stringent limits to date on axion-like particle production for masses in the range 6-100 GeV. Cross sections above 2 to 70 nb are excluded at the 95% CL in that mass interval.
The study of global event shape variables can provide sensitive tests of predictions for multijet production in proton-proton collisions. This paper presents a study of several event shape variables calculated using jet four momenta in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and uses data recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.2 fb$^{-1}$. After correcting for detector effects, the resulting distributions are compared with several theoretical predictions. The agreement generally improves as the energy, represented by the average transverse momentum of the two leading jets, increases.
The first measurements of the Fourier coefficients ($V_{n\Delta}$) of the azimuthal distributions of charged hadrons emitted from photon-proton ($\gamma$p) interactions at the LHC are presented. The data are extracted from 68.8 nb$^{-1}$ of ultra-peripheral proton-lead (pPb) collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 8.16 TeV using the CMS detector. The high energy lead ions produce a flux of photons that can interact with the oncoming proton. This $\gamma$p system provides a set of unique initial conditions with multiplicity lower than in photon-lead collisions but comparable to recent electron-positron and electron-proton data. The $V_{n\Delta}$ coefficients are presented in ranges of event multiplicity and transverse momentum ($p_\mathrm{T}$) and are compared to corresponding hadronic minimum bias pPb results. For a given multiplicity range, the mean $p_\mathrm{T}$ of charged particles is smaller in $\gamma$p than in pPb collisions. For both the $\gamma$p and pPb samples, $V_{1\Delta}$ is negative, $V_{2\Delta}$ is positive, and $V_{3\Delta}$ consistent with 0. For each multiplicity and $p_\mathrm{T}$ range, $V_{2\Delta}$ is larger for $\gamma$p events. The $\gamma$p data are consistent with model predictions that have no collective effects.
The central exclusive production of charged-hadron pairs in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13\TeV is examined, based on data collected in a special high-$\beta^*$ run of the LHC. The nonresonant continuum processes are studied with the invariant mass of the centrally produced two-pion system in the resonance-free region, $m_{\pi^+\pi^-}$$\lt$ 0.7 GeV or $m_{\pi^+\pi^-}$$\gt$ 1.8 GeV. Differential cross sections as functions of the azimuthal angle between the surviving protons, squared exchanged four-momenta, and $m_{\pi^+\pi^-}$ are measured in a wide region of scattered proton transverse momenta, between 0.2 and 0.8 GeV, and for pion rapidities $\lvert y\rvert$$\lt$ 2. A rich structure of interactions related to double-pomeron exchange is observed. A parabolic minimum in the distribution of the two-proton azimuthal angle is observed for the first time. It can be interpreted as an effect of additional pomeron exchanges between the protons from the interference between the bare and the rescattered amplitudes. After model tuning, various physical quantities are determined that are related to the pomeron cross section, proton-pomeron and meson-pomeron form factors, pomeron trajectory and intercept, and coefficients of diffractive eigenstates of the proton.
We report on the measurement of freeze-out radii for pairs of identical-charge pions measured in Pb--Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76$ TeV as a function of collision centrality and the average transverse momentum of the pair $k_{\rm T}$. Three-dimensional sizes of the system (femtoscopic radii), as well as direction-averaged one-dimensional radii are extracted. The radii decrease with $k_{\rm T}$, following a power-law behavior. This is qualitatively consistent with expectations from a collectively expanding system, produced in hydrodynamic calculations. The radii also scale linearly with $\left< \mathrm{d}N_{\rm ch}/\mathrm{d}\eta \right>^{1/3}$. This behaviour is compared to world data on femtoscopic radii in heavy-ion collisions. While the dependence is qualitatively similar to results at smaller $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$, a decrease in the $R_{\rm out}/R_{\rm side}$ ratio is seen, which is in qualitative agreement with specific predictions from hydrodynamic models. The results provide further evidence for the production of a collective, strongly coupled system in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC.
Measurements of normalized differential cross-sections for top-quark pair production are presented as a~function of the top-quark transverse momentum, and of the mass, transverse momentum, and rapidity of the $t\bar{t}$ system, in proton--proton collisions at a~center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb$^{-1}$, recorded in 2011 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in the lepton+jets channel, requiring exactly one lepton and at least four jets with at least one of the jets tagged as originating from a~$b$-quark. The measured spectra are corrected for detector efficiency and resolution effects and are compared to several Monte Carlo simulations and theory calculations. The results are in fair agreement with the predictions in a~wide kinematic range. Nevertheless, data distributions are softer than predicted for higher values of the mass of the $t\bar{t}$ system and of the top-quark transverse momentum. The measurements can also discriminate among different sets of parton distribution functions.
The polarization of $\tau$ leptons is measured using leptonic and hadronic $\tau$ lepton decays in Z $\to$$\tau^+\tau^-$ events in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV recorded by CMS at the CERN LHC with an integrated luminosity of 36.3 fb$^{-1}$. The measured $\tau^-$ polarization at the Z boson mass pole is $\mathcal{P}_{\tau}$(Z) = $-$0.144 $\pm$ 0.006 (stat) $\pm$ 0.014 (syst) = $-$0.144 $\pm$ 0.015, in good agreement with the measurement of the $\tau$ lepton asymmetry parameter of $A_{\tau}$ = 0.1439 $\pm$ 0.0043 = $-\mathcal{P}_{\tau}$(Z) at LEP. The $\tau$ polarization depends on the ratio of the vector to axial-vector couplings of the $\tau$ leptons in the neutral current expression, and thus on the effective weak mixing angle $\sin^{2}\theta_\mathrm{W}^{\text{eff}}$, independently of the Z boson production mechanism. The obtained value $\sin^{2}\theta_\mathrm{W}^{\text{eff}}$ = 0.2319 $\pm$ 0.0008 (stat) $\pm$ 0.0018 (syst) = 0.2319 $\pm$ 0.0019 is in good agreement with measurements at e$^+$e$^-$ colliders.
We present an analysis of proton number fluctuations in $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.4 GeV Au+Au collisions measured with the High-Acceptance DiElectron Spectrometer (HADES) at GSI. With the help of extensive detector simulations done with IQMD transport model events including nuclear clusters, various nuisance effects influencing the observed proton cumulants have been investigated. Acceptance and efficiency corrections have been applied as a function of fine grained rapidity and transverse momentum bins, as well as considering local track density dependencies. Next, the effects of volume changes within particular centrality selections have been considered and beyond-leading-order corrections have been applied to the data. The efficiency and volume corrected proton number moments and cumulants Kn of orders n = 1, . . . , 4 have been obtained as a function of centrality and phase-space bin, as well as the corresponding correlators C_n . We find that the observed correlators show a power-law scaling with the mean number of protons, i.e. $C_n \propto <N>^n$, indicative of mostly long-range multi-particle correlations in momentum space. We also present a comparison of our results with Au+Au collision data obtained at RHIC at similar centralities, but higher $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$.
The CERES experiment (CErenkov Ring Electron Spectrometer) studies the production of low mass e + e − pairs in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus interactions at the CERN SPS. The CERES spectrometer, has a novel design based on two Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) counters, and it operates close to its design specifications. Data were recorded with 200 GeV u sulfur beam and 450 GeV proton beam. The analysis is in progress. We have extracted first e + − -pairs samples for p+Be, p+Au and S+Au collisions. In addition other physics topics were addressed. Inclusive photon spectra were measured in S+Au interactions. No excess over known hadronic sources was found within our present systematic error of 11%. Results on high p i charged pion spectra are presented up to 4 GeV c . We also studied the production of e + e − -pairs m the strong electromagnetic fields of very peripheral S+Pt collisions. The data are well described by a first-order perturbative QED-calculation.
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