Angular distributions of the decay B$^+$$\to$ K$^*$(892)$^+\mu^+\mu^-$ are studied using events collected with the CMS detector in $\sqrt{s} =$ 8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.0 fb$^{-1}$. The forward-backward asymmetry of the muons and the longitudinal polarization of the K$^*$(892)$^+$ meson are determined as a function of the square of the dimuon invariant mass. These are the first results from this exclusive decay mode and are in agreement with a standard model prediction.

Collinear (small-angle) and large-angle, as well as soft and hard radiations are investigated in three-jet and Z + two-jet events collected in proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The normalized production cross sections are measured as a function of the ratio of transverse momenta of two jets and their angular separation. The measurements in the three-jet and Z + two-jet events are based on data collected at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.8 fb$^{-1}$. The Z + two-jet events are reconstructed in the dimuon decay channel of the Z boson. The three-jet measurement is extended to include $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.3 fb$^{-1}$. The results are compared to predictions from event generators that include parton showers, multiple parton interactions, and hadronization. The collinear and soft regions are in general well described by parton showers, whereas the regions of large angular separation are often best described by calculations using higher-order matrix elements.

A measurement of the elliptic flow ($v_2$) of prompt J/$\psi$ mesons in high-multiplicity pPb collisions is reported using data collected by the CMS experiment at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} =$ 8.16 TeV. Prompt J/$\psi$ mesons decaying into two muons are reconstructed in the rapidity region in the nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass frame ($y_\mathrm{cm}$), corresponding to either $-$2.86 $\lt y_{\mathrm{cm}} <$ $-$1.86 or 0.94 $\lt y_{\mathrm{cm}} <$ 1.94. The average $v_2$ result from the two rapidity ranges is reported over the transverse momentum (p$_\mathrm{T}$) range from 0.2 to 10 GeV. Positive $v_2$ values are observed for the prompt J/$\psi$ meson, as extracted from long-range two-particle correlations with charged hadrons, for 2 $\lt p_{\mathrm{T}}<$ 8 GeV. The prompt J/$\psi$ results are compared with previous CMS measurements of elliptic flow for open charm mesons (D$^0$) and strange hadrons. From these measurements, constraints can be obtained on the collective dynamics of charm quarks produced in high-multiplicity events arising from small systems.

Inclusive J/$\psi$ production is studied in p-Pb interactions at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon-nucleon collision $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=8.16$ TeV, using the ALICE detector at the CERN LHC. The J/$\psi$ meson is reconstructed, via its decay to a muon pair, in the centre-of-mass rapidity intervals $2.03<y_{\rm {cms}}<3.53$ and $-4.46<y_{\rm {cms}}<-2.96$, where positive and negative $y_{\rm {cms}}$ refer to the p-going and Pb-going direction, respectively. The transverse momentum coverage is $p_{\rm T}<20$ GeV/$c$. In this paper, $y_{\rm cms}$- and $p_{\rm T}$-differential cross sections for inclusive J/$\psi$ production are presented, and the corresponding nuclear modification factors $R_{\rm pPb}$ are shown. Forward results show a suppression of the J/$\psi$ yield with respect to pp collisions, concentrated in the region $p_{\rm T}\lesssim 5$ GeV/$c$. At backward rapidity no significant suppression is observed. The results are compared to previous measurements by ALICE in p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.02$ TeV and to theoretical calculations. Finally, the ratios $R_{\rm FB}$ between forward- and backward-$y_{\rm {cms}}$ $R_{\rm pPb}$ values are shown and discussed.

Despite the f$_0$(980) hadron having been discovered half a century ago, the question about its quark content has not been settled: it might be an ordinary quark-antiquark ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}}$) meson, a tetraquark ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}q\bar{q}}$) exotic state, a kaon-antikaon ($\mathrm{K\bar{K}}$) molecule, or a quark-antiquark-gluon ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}g}$) hybrid. This paper reports strong evidence that the f$_0$(980) state is an ordinary $\mathrm{q\bar{q}}$ meson, inferred from the scaling of elliptic anisotropies ($v_2$) with the number of constituent quarks ($n_\mathrm{q}$), as empirically established using conventional hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The f$_0$(980) state is reconstructed via its dominant decay channel f$_0$(980) $\to$$\pi^+\pi^-$, in proton-lead collisions recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC, and its $v_2$ is measured as a function of transverse momentum ($p_\mathrm{T}$). It is found that the $n_q$ = 2 ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}}$ state) hypothesis is favored over $n_q$ = 4 ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}q\bar{q}}$ or $\mathrm{K\bar{K}}$ states) by 7.7, 6.3, or 3.1 standard deviations in the $p_\mathrm{T}$$\lt$ 10, 8, or 6 GeV/$c$ ranges, respectively, and over $n_\mathrm{q}$ = 3 ($\mathrm{q\bar{q}g}$ hybrid state) by 3.5 standard deviations in the $p_\mathrm{T}$$\lt$ 8 GeV/$c$ range. This result represents the first determination of the quark content of the f$_0$(980) state, made possible by using a novel approach, and paves the way for similar studies of other exotic hadron candidates.

A search for physics beyond the standard model in events with at least three leptons is presented. The data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collisions with center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, was collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC during 2012. The data are divided into exclusive categories based on the number of leptons and their flavor, the presence or absence of an opposite-sign, same-flavor lepton pair (OSSF), the invariant mass of the OSSF pair, the presence or absence of a tagged bottom-quark jet, the number of identified hadronically decaying tau leptons, and the magnitude of the missing transverse energy and of the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta. The numbers of observed events are found to be consistent with the expected numbers from standard model processes, and limits are placed on new-physics scenarios that yield multilepton final states. In particular, scenarios that predict Higgs boson production in the context of supersymmetric decay chains are examined. We also place a 95% confidence level upper limit of 1.3% on the branching fraction for the decay of a top quark to a charm quark and a Higgs boson (t to c H), which translates to a bound on the left- and right-handed top-charm flavor-violating Higgs Yukawa couplings, lambda[H, tc] and lambda[H, ct], respectively, of sqrt(abs(lambda[H, tc])^2 + abs(lambda[H, ct])^2) < 0.21.

The pseudorapidity ($\eta$) and transverse-momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) distributions of charged particles produced in proton-proton collisions are measured at the centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV. The pseudorapidity distribution in $|\eta|<$ 1.8 is reported for inelastic events and for events with at least one charged particle in $|\eta|<$ 1. The pseudorapidity density of charged particles produced in the pseudorapidity region $|\eta|<$ 0.5 is 5.31 $\pm$ 0.18 and 6.46 $\pm$ 0.19 for the two event classes, respectively. The transverse-momentum distribution of charged particles is measured in the range 0.15 $<$ $p_{\rm T}$ $<$ 20 GeV/c and $|\eta|<$ 0.8 for events with at least one charged particle in $|\eta|<$ 1. The correlation between transverse momentum and particle multiplicity is also investigated by studying the evolution of the spectra with event multiplicity. The results are compared with calculations from PYTHIA and EPOS Monte Carlo generators.

The charge asymmetry in t t-bar events is measured using dilepton final states produced in pp collisions at the LHC at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The data sample, collected with the CMS detector, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 inverse femtobarns. The measurements are performed using events with two oppositely charged leptons (electrons or muons) and two or more jets, where at least one of the jets is identified as originating from a bottom quark. The charge asymmetry is measured from differences in kinematic distributions, unfolded to the parton level, of positively and negatively charged top quarks and leptons. The t t-bar and leptonic charge asymmetries are found to be 0.011 +/- 0.011 (stat) +/- 0.007 (syst) and 0.003 +/- 0.006 (stat) +/- 0.003 (syst), respectively. These results, as well as charge asymmetry measurements made as a function of the invariant mass, rapidity, and transverse momentum of the t t-bar system, are in agreement with predictions of the standard model.

A study is presented of central exclusive production of $\Upsilon(nS)$ states, where the $\Upsilon(nS)$ resonances decay to the $\mu^+\mu^-$ final state, using $pp$ collision data recorded by the LHCb experiment. The cross-section is measured in the rapidity range $2<y(\Upsilon)<4.5$ where the muons are reconstructed in the pseudorapidity range $2<\eta(\mu^\pm)<4.5$. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.9 fb$^{-1}$ and was collected at centre-of-mass energies of $7$ TeV and $8$ TeV. The measured $\Upsilon(1S)$ and $\Upsilon(2S)$ production cross-sections are \begin{eqnarray} \sigma(pp \to p\Upsilon(1S)p) &=& 9.0 \pm 2.1 \pm 1.7\textrm{ pb and}\nonumber\\ \sigma(pp \to p\Upsilon(2S)p) &=& 1.3 \pm 0.8 \pm 0.3\textrm{ pb},\nonumber \end{eqnarray} where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second are systematic. The $\Upsilon(1S)$ cross-section is also measured as a function of rapidity and is found to be in good agreement with Standard Model predictions. An upper limit is set at 3.4 pb at the 95\% confidence level for the exclusive $\Upsilon(3S)$ production cross-section, including possible contamination from $\chi_b(3P)\to\Upsilon(3S)\gamma$ decays.

A comparison of the differential cross sections for the processes Z/gamma* + jets and photon (gamma) + jets is presented. The measurements are based on data collected with the CMS detector at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. The differential cross sections and their ratios are presented as functions of pt. The measurements are also shown as functions of the jet multiplicity. Differential cross sections are obtained as functions of the ratio of the Z/gamma* pt to the sum of all jet transverse momenta and of the ratio of the Z/gamma* pt to the leading jet transverse momentum. The data are corrected for detector effects and are compared to simulations based on several QCD calculations.