Observation of electroweak production of two jets in association with an isolated photon and missing transverse momentum, and search for a Higgs boson decaying into invisible particles at 13 $$\text {TeV}$$ with the ATLAS detector

Journal article

This paper presents a measurement of the electroweak production of two jets in association with a Zγ pair, with the Z boson decaying into two neutrinos. It also presents a search for invisible or partially invisible decays of a Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV produced through vectorboson fusion with a photon in the final state. These results use data from LHC proton–proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. The event signature, shared by all benchmark processes considered for the measurements and searches, is characterized by a significant amount of unbalanced transverse momentum and a photon in the final state, in addition to a pair of forward jets. Electroweak Zγ production in association with two jets is observed in this final state with a significance of 5.2 (5.1 expected) standard deviations. The measured fiducial cross-section for this process is 1.31 ± 0.29 fb. An observed (expected) upper limit of 0.37 (0.34+0.15 −0.10) at 95% confidence level is set on the branching ratio of a 125 GeV Higgs boson to invisible particles, assuming the Standard Model production cross-section. The signature is also interpreted in the context of decays of a Higgs boson into a photon and a dark photon. An observed (expected) 95% CL upper limit on the branching ratio for this decay is set at 0.018 (0.017+0.007−0.005), assuming the Standard Model production cross-section for a 125 GeV Higgs boson

Authors: Aad, G; Abbott, B; Abbott, DC; Abud, AA; Abeling, K

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SpringerOpen
• Journal: The European Physical Journal C
• Volume: 82
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 105
• Article number: 105
• Publication date: 2022-02-03
• DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09878-z
• EISSN: 1434-6052
• ISSN: 1434-6044
• Language: English
• Keywords: Quantum mechanics; Higgs boson; Computer science; Physics; Electroweak interaction; Nuclear physics; Luminosity; Particle physics; Algorithm