Evidence of ZZγ Production and Observation of 4ℓγ in Proton-Proton Collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV.
Journal Article
Overview
abstract
Evidence of the production of two Z bosons and a photon in proton-proton collisions is reported for the first time in CMS. The analysis uses data collected by the CMS experiment between 2016 and 2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb^{-1}. Evidence for the process pp→ZZγ→4ℓγ (ℓ=e, μ), with an observed (expected) significance of 3.7 (3.1) standard deviations in a fiducial region defined by p_{T}^{γ}>20 GeV, -η^{γ}-<2.4, ΔR(ℓ,γ)>0.5, m_{Z} between 60 and 120 GeV, and the invariant mass of either of the two Z bosons combined with the photon (m_{Z_{γ}}) larger than 100 GeV, is reported. The measured (predicted) fiducial cross section is 60_{-22}^{+27} ab (47.56±0.04 ab). Additionally, the inclusive production of pp→4ℓγ is studied by removing the m_{Z_{γ}} requirement to include final state radiation where one Z boson decays to 2ℓγ, yielding an observed (expected) significance of 5.0 (4.2) standard deviations and a measured (predicted) fiducial cross section of 156_{-35}^{+39} ab (99.97±0.09 ab).
