Search for heavy resonances decaying into four-lepton final states via light bosons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for heavy resonances decaying into four leptons via light bosons in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV, employing novel techniques to detect collimated dilepton pairs, but finds no significant excess.

Contribution

It introduces new methods to improve sensitivity to collimated dilepton pairs from light boson decays in four-lepton resonance searches at the LHC.

Findings

No significant excess observed over background predictions.

Set upper limits on production cross section for four-lepton resonances.

Explored previously untested phase space with dilepton mass 0.4-15 GeV.

Abstract

A search for a resonance heavier than 250 GeV decaying into four leptons via two intermediate bosons is presented. The search uses proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$. Novel techniques are used to enhance the sensitivity to a collimated pair of dileptons reconstructed as a single merged object, resulting from the decay of an intermediate light boson. No significant excess of data over the background predictions is observed. Upper limits are set on the production cross section for a four-lepton resonance, including the previously unexplored phase space at the LHC with a dilepton mass of 0.4$-$15 GeV.