Measurement of the W±Z boson pair-production cross section in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

The production of W±Z events in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV is measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The collected data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb−1. The W±Z candidates are reconstructed using leptonic decays of the gauge bosons into electrons or muons. The measured inclusive cross section in the detector fiducial region for leptonic decay modes is σfid. W±Z→ℓʹ νℓℓ=63.2 ±3.2 (stat.)±2.6 (sys.)±1.5 (lumi.)fb. In comparison, the next-to-leading-order Standard Model prediction is 53.4+3.6 −2.8fb. The extrapolation of the measurement from the fiducial to the total phase space yields σtot. W±Z=50.6 ±2.6 (stat.)±2.0 (sys.)±0.9 (th.)±1.2 (lumi.)pb, in agreement with a recent next-to-next-to-leading-order calculation of 48.2+1.1 −1.0pb. The cross section as a function of jet multiplicity is also measured, together with the charge-dependent W+Z and W−Z cross sections and their ratio ; We acknowledge the support of ANPCyT, Argentina; YerPhI, Ar-menia; ARC, Australia; BMWFW and FWF, Austria; ANAS, Azerbai-jan; SSTC, Belarus; CNPq and FAPESP, Brazil; NSERC, NRC and CFI, Canada; CERN; CONICYT, Chile; CAS, MOST and NSFC, China; COL-CIENCIAS, Colombia; MSMT CR, MPO CR and VSC CR, Czech Re-public; DNRF and DNSRC, Denmark; IN2P3-CNRS, CEA-DSM/IRFU, France; GNSF, Georgia; BMBF, HGF, and MPG, Germany; GSRT, Greece; RGC, Hong Kong SAR, China; ISF, I-CORE and Benoziyo Center, Israel; INFN, Italy; MEXT and JSPS, Japan; CNRST, Mo-rocco; FOM and NWO, Netherlands; RCN, Norway; MNiSW and NCN, Poland; FCT, Portugal; MNE/IFA, Romania; MES of Russia and NRC KI, Russian Federation; JINR; MESTD, Serbia; MSSR, Slovakia; ARRS and MIZŠ, Slovenia; DST/NRF, South Africa; MINECO, Spain; SRC and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden; SERI, SNSF and Cantons of Bern and Geneva, Switzerland; MOST, Tai-wan; TAEK, Turkey; STFC, United Kingdom; DOE and NSF, United States of America. In addition, individual groups and members have received support from BCKDF, the Canada Council, Canarie, CRC, Compute Canada, FQRNT, and the Ontario Innovation Trust, Canada; EPLANET, ERC, FP7, Horizon 2020 and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, European Union; Investissements d'Avenir Labex and Idex, ANR, Région Auvergne and Fondation Partager le Savoir, France; DFG and AvH Foundation, Germany; Herakleitos, Thales and Aristeia programmes co-financed by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; BSF, GIF and Minerva, Israel; BRF, Norway; Generalitat de Catalunya, Generalitat Valenciana, Spain; the Royal Society and Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom. The crucial computing support from all WLCG partners is acknowledged gratefully, in particular from CERN, the ATLAS Tier-1 facilities at TRIUMF (Canada), NDGF (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), CC-IN2P3 (France), KIT/GridKA (Germany), INFN-CNAF (Italy), NL-T1 (Netherlands), PIC (Spain), ASGC (Taiwan), RAL (UK) and BNL (USA), the Tier-2 facilities worldwide and large non-WLCG resource providers