An embedding technique to determine $\tau \tau$ backgrounds in proton-proton collision data

Abstract

An embedding technique is presented to estimate standard model $\tau \tau$ backgrounds from data with minimal simulation input. In the data, the muons are removed from reconstructed $\mu \mu$ events and replaced with simulated tau leptons with the same kinematic properties. In this way a set of hybrid events is obtained that does not rely on simulation except for the decay of the tau leptons. The challenges in describing the underlying event or the production of associated jets in the simulation are avoided. The technique described in this paper was developed for CMS. Its validation and the inherent uncertainties are also discussed. The demonstration of the performance of the technique is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions collected by CMS in 2017 at $\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 41.5 fb${}^{-1}$.

Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables, including additional supplementary figures, can be found at http://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/TAU-18-001 (CMS Public Pages)

References in corpus (13)

• Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC
• The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations
• An Introduction to PYTHIA 8.2
• Matching NLO QCD computations with Parton Shower simulations: the POWHEG method
• Particle-flow reconstruction and global event description with the CMS detector
• Pileup subtraction using jet areas
• The CMS trigger system
• Description and performance of track and primary-vertex reconstruction with the CMS tracker
• The Catchment Area of Jets
• Performance of electron reconstruction and selection with the CMS detector in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV
• Evidence for the Higgs-boson Yukawa coupling to tau leptons with the ATLAS detector
• Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions
• Search for charged Higgs bosons decaying via $H^{\pm }\to {\tau }^{\pm }\nu$ in fully hadronic final states using $pp$ collision data at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV with the ATLAS detector