CMS logoCMS event Hgg
Compact Muon Solenoid
LHC, CERN

CMS-PAS-EXO-17-005
Search for high-mass Z$\gamma$ resonances in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}= $ 13 TeV
Abstract: A search for high-mass resonances decaying to a Z boson and a photon is presented. The analysis is based on a data set of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$ collected with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2016. In the leptonic channel the Z boson candidates are reconstructed using an electron or a muon pair. In the hadronic channel they are identified using a large-radius jet containing either light-quark or b quark decay products of the Z boson, identified using jet substructure and advanced b tagging techniques. The results in the leptonic and hadronic channels are combined and interpreted in terms of upper limits on the production cross section of narrow and broad spin-0 resonances with masses between 0.3 and 4.0 TeV. These limits are most stringent to date for a wide range of resonance masses.
Figures & Tables Summary References CMS Publications
Figures

png pdf
Figure 1:
Observed $ {{M}_{\ell \ell \gamma }} $ invariant mass spectra in the data, for the $ {\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma } $ (left) and the $ {\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma } $ (right) channels. The fitted function is represented by a line, with the 68% uncertainty band as gray shading. The lower panels show the difference between the data and the fit, divided by the uncertainty $\sigma _\text {stat}$, which includes the statistical uncertainty in both the data and the fit. For bins with a low number of data entries, the error bars correspond to the Garwood confidence intervals.

png pdf
Figure 1-a:
Observed $ {{M}_{\ell \ell \gamma }} $ invariant mass spectra in the data, for the $ {\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma } $ channel. The fitted function is represented by a line, with the 68% uncertainty band as gray shading. The lower panel shows the difference between the data and the fit, divided by the uncertainty $\sigma _\text {stat}$, which includes the statistical uncertainty in both the data and the fit. For bins with a low number of data entries, the error bars correspond to the Garwood confidence intervals.

png pdf
Figure 1-b:
Observed $ {{M}_{\ell \ell \gamma }} $ invariant mass spectra in the data, for the $ {\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma } $ channel. The fitted function is represented by a line, with the 68% uncertainty band as gray shading. The lower panel shows the difference between the data and the fit, divided by the uncertainty $\sigma _\text {stat}$, which includes the statistical uncertainty in both the data and the fit. For bins with a low number of data entries, the error bars correspond to the Garwood confidence intervals.

png pdf
Figure 2:
Fits in the signal region in the b-tagged, tau21 and anti-tau21 categories.

png pdf
Figure 2-a:
Fits in the signal region in the b-tagged category.

png pdf
Figure 2-b:
Fits in the signal region in the tau21 category.

png pdf
Figure 2-c:
Fits in the signal region in the anti-tau21 category.

png pdf
Figure 3:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma \rightarrow \ell ^{+}\ell ^{-}\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for (a) the ${\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma }$ channel with the narrow-width scenario, (b) the ${\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma }$ channel with the narrow-width scenario, (c) the ${\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma }$ channel with the wide-width scenario, and (d) the ${\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma }$ channel with the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 3-a:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma \rightarrow \ell ^{+}\ell ^{-}\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the ${\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma }$ channel with the narrow-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 3-b:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma \rightarrow \ell ^{+}\ell ^{-}\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the ${\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma }$ channel with the narrow-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 3-c:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma \rightarrow \ell ^{+}\ell ^{-}\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the ${\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma }$ channel with the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 3-d:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma \rightarrow \ell ^{+}\ell ^{-}\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the ${\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma }$ channel with the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 4:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$ as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% (green) and 95% (yellow) ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the combination of the ${\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma }$ and ${\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma }$ channels with (a) the narrow-width scenario and (b) the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 4-a:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$ as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% (green) and 95% (yellow) ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the combination of the ${\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma }$ and ${\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma }$ channels with the narrow-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 4-b:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$ as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% (green) and 95% (yellow) ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the combination of the ${\mathrm{ e } ^+\mathrm{ e } ^-\gamma }$ and ${\mu ^+\mu ^-\gamma }$ channels with the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 5:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for (a) b-tagged category with the narrow-width scenario, (b) tau21 category with the narrow-width scenario, (c) anti-tau21 category with the narrow-width scenario, (d) b-tagged category with the wide-width scenario, (e) tau21 category with the wide-width scenario, and (f) anti-tau21 category with the wide-width scenario

png pdf
Figure 5-a:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for b-tagged category with the narrow-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 5-b:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for tau21 category with the narrow-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 5-c:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for anti-tau21 category with the narrow-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 5-d:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for b-tagged category with the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 5-e:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for tau21 category with the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 5-f:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$, as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% and 95% ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for anti-tau21 category with the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 6:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$ as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% (green) and 95% (yellow) ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the combination of the b-tagged, tau21, and anti-tau21 categories with (a) the narrow-width scenario and (b) the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 6-a:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$ as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% (green) and 95% (yellow) ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the combination of the b-tagged, tau21, and anti-tau21 categories with the narrow-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 6-b:
Observed (solid) and expected (dashed) 95% C.L. upper limits on $\sigma (X\rightarrow Z\gamma )$ as a function of signal mass, together with the 68% (green) and 95% (yellow) ranges of expectation in the background-only hypothesis, for the combination of the b-tagged, tau21, and anti-tau21 categories with the wide-width scenario.

png pdf
Figure 7:
Left: Observed and expected limits on the product of the cross section at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 13 TeV and branching fraction ${\cal B}(\mathrm {X} \to \mathrm{ Z } \gamma )$ for the production of a narrow spin-0 resonance, obtained from the combination of the 13 TeV analyses in hadronic and leptonic decay channels of the Z boson, assuming a gluon fusion production mechanism. Right: Observed and expected limits for broad spin-0 resonance.

png pdf
Figure 7-a:
Observed and expected limits on the product of the cross section at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 13 TeV and branching fraction ${\cal B}(\mathrm {X} \to \mathrm{ Z } \gamma )$ for the production of a narrow spin-0 resonance, obtained from the combination of the 13 TeV analyses in hadronic and leptonic decay channels of the Z boson, assuming a gluon fusion production mechanism.

png pdf
Figure 7-b:
Observed and expected limits for broad spin-0 resonance.
Tables

png pdf
Table 1:
Summary of the sources of uncertainties and their effects on the signal yield.
Summary
A search for high-mass resonances decaying to a Z boson and a photon has been presented, where the Z boson decays leptonically (an electron or a muon pair) or hadronically. In the hadronic channel, the Z boson candidates are reconstructed by a light-quark and b-quark jet identified using jet substructure and advanced b-tagging techniques. This search is based on the full 2016 dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected by the CMS detector at the center-of-mass energies of 13 TeV. Spin-0 resonances with masses in a range between 0.3 and 4.0 TeV are considered and these results in the leptonic and hadronic channels are combined. The results are presented in terms of upper limits on the production cross section of such resonances.
References
1 ATLAS Collaboration Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC PLB 716 (2012) 1 1207.7214
2 CMS Collaboration Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC PLB 716 (2012) 30 CMS-HIG-12-028
1207.7235
3 CMS Collaboration Observation of a new boson with mass near 125 GeV in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 7 and 8 TeV JHEP 06 (2013) 081 CMS-HIG-12-036
1303.4571
4 CMS Collaboration Search for massive resonances in dijet systems containing jets tagged as W or Z boson decays in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 8 TeV JHEP 08 (2014) 173 CMS-EXO-12-024
1405.1994
5 CMS Collaboration Search for massive resonances decaying into pairs of boosted bosons in semi-leptonic final states at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 8 TeV JHEP 08 (2014) 174 CMS-EXO-13-009
1405.3447
6 ATLAS Collaboration Combination of searches for WW, WZ, and ZZ resonances in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector PLB 755 (2016) 285 1512.05099
7 ATLAS Collaboration Searches for heavy diboson resonances in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP 09 (2016) 173 1606.04833
8 CMS Collaboration Search for a massive resonance decaying into a Higgs boson and a W or Z boson in hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 8 TeV JHEP 02 (2016) 145 CMS-EXO-14-009
1506.01443
9 CMS Collaboration Search for massive WH resonances decaying into the $ \ell \nu \mathrm{b} \overline{\mathrm{b}} $ final state at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 8 TeV EPJC C76 (2016) 237 CMS-EXO-14-010
1601.06431
10 ATLAS Collaboration Search for new resonances decaying to a $ W $ or $ Z $ boson and a Higgs boson in the $ \ell^+ \ell^- b\bar b $, $ \ell \nu b\bar b $, and $ \nu\bar{\nu} b\bar b $ channels with $ pp $ collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector PLB 765 (2017) 32 1607.05621
11 ATLAS Collaboration Searches for Higgs boson pair production in the $ hh\to bb\tau\tau, \gamma\gamma WW^*, \gamma\gamma bb, bbbb $ channels with the ATLAS detector PRD 92 (2015) 092004 1509.04670
12 CMS Collaboration Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks EPJC 76 (2016) 371 CMS-EXO-12-053
1602.08762
13 ATLAS Collaboration Search for pair production of Higgs bosons in the $ b\bar{b}b\bar{b} $ final state using proton--proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector PRD 94 (2016) 052002 1606.04782
14 L. D. Landau On the angular momentum of a system of two photons Dokl. Akad. Nauk Ser. Fiz. 60 (1948) 207
15 C.-N. Yang Selection Rules for the Dematerialization of a Particle Into Two Photons PR77 (1950) 242
16 E. Eichten and K. Lane Low-scale technicolor at the Tevatron and LHC PLB 669 (2008) 235 0706.2339
17 R. Barbieri and R. Torre Signals of single particle production at the earliest LHC PLB 695 (2011) 259 1008.5302
18 I. Low, J. Lykken, and G. Shaughnessy Singlet scalars as Higgs imposters at the Large Hadron Collider PRD 84 (2011) 035027 1105.4587
19 A. Freitas and P. Schwaller Multi-photon signals from composite models at LHC JHEP 01 (2011) 022 1010.2528
20 H. Davoudiasl, J. L. Hewett, and T. G. Rizzo Experimental probes of localized gravity: On and off the wall PRD 63 (2001) 075004 hep-ph/0006041
21 B. C. Allanach, J. P. Skittrall, and K. Sridhar Z boson decay to photon plus Kaluza-Klein graviton in large extra dimensions JHEP 11 (2007) 089 0705.1953
22 ATLAS Collaboration Search for heavy resonances decaying to a $ \mathrm{ Z } $ boson and a photon in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector PLB 764 (2017) 11 1607.06363
23 CMS Collaboration Search for high-mass Z$ \gamma $ resonances in proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 8 and 13 TeV using jet substructure techniques Submitted to PLB CMS-EXO-16-025
1612.09516
24 L3 Collaboration Search for anomalous couplings in the Higgs sector at LEP PLB 589 (2004) 89 hep-ex/0403037
25 D0 Collaboration Search for particles decaying into a Z boson and a photon in $ {\rm p\bar{p}} $ collisions at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 1.96 TeV PLB 641 (2006) 415 hep-ex/0605064
26 D0 Collaboration Search for a scalar or vector particle decaying into $ \mathrm{ Z } \gamma $ in $ p \bar{p} $ collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=$ 1.96 TeV PLB 671 (2009) 349 0806.0611
27 ATLAS Collaboration Measurements of $ \mathrm{ W }\gamma $ and $ \mathrm{ Z }\gamma $ production in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC PRD 87 (2013) 112003 1302.1283
28 ATLAS Collaboration Search for new resonances in $ \mathrm{ W }\gamma $ and $ \mathrm{ Z }\gamma $ final states in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector PLB 738 (2014) 428 1407.8150
29 CMS Collaboration Search for high-mass Z$ \gamma $ resonances in e$ ^+ $e$ ^-\gamma $ and $ \mu^+\mu^-\gamma $ final states in proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 8 and 13 TeV JHEP 01 (2017) 076 CMS-EXO-16-021
1610.02960
30 CMS Collaboration Search for a Higgs boson decaying into a Z and a photon in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 7 and 8 TeV PLB 726 (2013) 587 CMS-HIG-13-006
1307.5515
31 ATLAS Collaboration Search for Higgs boson decays to a photon and a Z boson in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector PLB 732 (2014) 8 1402.3051
32 CMS Collaboration The CMS experiment at the CERN LHC JINST 3 (2008) S08004 CMS-00-001
33 CMS Collaboration Performance of electron reconstruction and selection with the CMS detector in proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 8 TeV JINST 10 (2015) P06005 CMS-EGM-13-001
1502.02701
34 CMS Collaboration Particle-Flow Event Reconstruction in CMS and Performance for Jets, Taus, and MET CDS
35 CMS Collaboration Commissioning of the Particle-flow Event Reconstruction with the first LHC collisions recorded in the CMS detector CDS
36 CMS Collaboration Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at $ \sqrt{s}= $ 7 TeV JINST 7 (2012) P10002 CMS-MUO-10-004
1206.4071
37 M. Cacciari and G. P. Salam Pileup subtraction using jet areas PLB 659 (2008) 119 0707.1378
38 CMS Collaboration Measurement of the inclusive W and Z production cross sections in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s} = $ 7 TeV with the CMS experiment JHEP 10 (2011) 132 CMS-EWK-10-005
1107.4789
39 M. Cacciari, G. P. Salam, and G. Soyez The anti-$ k_\text{t} $ jet clustering algorithm JHEP 04 (2008) 063 0802.1189
40 CMS Collaboration Determination of Jet Energy Calibration and Transverse Momentum Resolution in CMS JINST 6 (2011) P11002 CMS-JME-10-011
1107.4277
41 S. D. Ellis, C. K. Vermilion, and J. R. Walsh Techniques for improved heavy particle searches with jet substructure PRD 80 (2009) 051501 0903.5081
42 S. D. Ellis, C. K. Vermilion, and J. R. Walsh Recombination algorithms and jet substructure: pruning as a tool for heavy particle searches PRD 81 (2010) 094023 0912.0033
43 CMS Collaboration Identification techniques for highly boosted W bosons that decay into hadrons JHEP 12 (2014) 017 CMS-JME-13-006
1410.4227
44 CMS Collaboration Identification of b quark jets at the CMS Experiment in the LHC Run 2
45 T. Sj\"ostrand, S. Mrenna, and P. Z. Skands A brief introduction to PYTHIA 8.1 CPC 178 (2008) 852 0710.3820
46 NNPDF Collaboration Parton distributions for the LHC Run II JHEP 04 (2015) 040 1410.8849
47 CMS Collaboration Event generator tunes obtained from underlying event and multiparton scattering measurements EPJC 76 (2016) 155 CMS-GEN-14-001
1512.00815
48 J. Alwall et al. MadGraph 5: going beyond JHEP 06 (2011) 128 1106.0522
49 J. Alwall et al. The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations JHEP 07 (2014) 079 1405.0301
50 P. Dauncey, M. Kenzie, N. Wardle, and G. Davies Handling uncertainties in background shapes: the discrete profiling method JINST 10 (2015) P04015
51 M. J. Oreglia PhD thesis, Stanford University, 1980 SLAC Report SLAC-R-236
52 CMS Collaboration CMS luminosity measurements for the 2016 data-taking period CMS-PAS-LUM-17-001 CMS-PAS-LUM-17-001
53 CMS Collaboration Jet algorithms performance in 13 TeV data CMS-PAS-JME-16-003 CMS-PAS-JME-16-003
54 A. L. Read Presentation of search results: The $ CL_s $ technique JPG 28 (2002) 2693
55 G. Cowan, K. Cranmer, E. Gross, and O. Vitells Asymptotic formulae for likelihood-based tests of new physics EPJC 71 (2011) 1554 1007.1727
Compact Muon Solenoid
LHC, CERN