Measurements of differential production cross sections for a Z boson in association with jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV

TL;DR

This paper measures how often Z bosons are produced with jets in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV, providing detailed differential cross sections and comparing results with advanced theoretical models.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed differential cross section measurements for Z+jets at 8 TeV and evaluates the accuracy of various multileg generators with NLO corrections.

Findings

Multi-parton contributions are crucial for accurate predictions.

Next-to-leading order calculations improve agreement with data.

Measurements highlight the importance of jet correlations in Z boson production.

Abstract

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.