Measurement of the electroweak production of Z$\gamma$ and two jets in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV and constraints on anomalous quartic gauge couplings

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observation of electroweak production of Zγ with two jets at 13 TeV, measuring cross sections and setting limits on anomalous gauge couplings, advancing understanding of electroweak interactions at high energies.

Contribution

It provides the first measurement of EW Zγjj production at 13 TeV and constrains anomalous quartic gauge couplings using CMS data from 2016-2018.

Findings

Measured fiducial cross section: 5.21 ± 0.76 fb.

Set 95% CL limits on anomalous quartic gauge couplings.

Provided differential cross sections in key kinematic variables.

Abstract

The first observation of the electroweak (EW) production of a Z boson, a photon, and two forward jets (Z$\gamma$jj) in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV is presented. A data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb$^{-1}$, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2016-2018 is used. The measured fiducial cross section for EW Z$\gamma$jj is $\sigma_{\mathrm{EW}}$ = 5.21 $\pm$ 0.52 (stat) $\pm$ 0.56 (syst) fb = 5.21 $\pm$ 0.76 fb. Single-differential cross sections in photon, leading lepton, and leading jet transverse momenta, and double-differential cross sections in $m_{\mathrm{jj}}$ and $\lvert\Delta\eta_{\mathrm{jj}}\rvert$ are also measured. Exclusion limits on anomalous quartic gauge couplings are derived at 95% confidence level in terms of the effective field theory operators $\mathrm{M}_{0}$ to $\mathrm{M}_{5}$, $\mathrm{M}_{7}$, $\mathrm{T}_{0}$ to $\mathrm{T}_{2}$, and $\mathrm{T}_{5}$ to $\mathrm{T}_{9}$.