Measurement and effective field theory interpretation of the photon-fusion production cross section of a pair of W bosons in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

Abstract

This analysis presents an observation of the photon-fusion production of W boson pairs using the CMS detector at the LHC. The total cross section of the W${}^{+}$W${}^{-}$ production in photon fusion is measured using proton-proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 138 fb${}^{-1}$ collected with the CMS detector in 2016$-$2018 at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV. Events are selected in the final state with one isolated electron and one isolated muon, and no additional tracks associated with the electron-muon production vertex. The total and fiducial production cross sections are 643 ${}_{-78}^{+82}$ fb and 3.96 ${}_{-0.51}^{+0.53}$ fb, respectively, in agreement with the standard model predictions of 631 $\pm$ 126 fb and 3.87 $\pm$ 0.77 fb. This agreement enables stringent constraints to be imposed on anomalous quartic gauge couplings within a dimension-8 effective field theory framework.

Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at http://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/SMP-24-019 (CMS Public Pages)

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