Measurements of the $\mathrm {p}\mathrm {p}\rightarrow \mathrm{Z}\mathrm{Z}$ production cross section and the $\mathrm{Z}\rightarrow 4\ell $ branching fraction, and constraints on anomalous triple gauge couplings at $\sqrt{s} = 13\,\text {TeV} $

Abstract

Four-lepton production in proton-proton collisions, $\mathrm {p}\mathrm {p}\rightarrow (\mathrm{Z}/ \gamma ^*)(\mathrm{Z}/\gamma ^*) \rightarrow 4\ell $ , where $\ell = \mathrm {e}$ or $\mu $ , is studied at a center-of-mass energy of 13 $\,\text {TeV}$ with the CMS detector at the LHC. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 $\,\text {fb}^{-1}$ . The ZZ production cross section, $\sigma (\mathrm {p}\mathrm {p}\rightarrow \mathrm{Z}\mathrm{Z}) = 17.2 \pm 0.5\,\text {(stat)} \pm 0.7\,\text {(syst)} \pm 0.4\,\text {(theo)} \pm 0.4\,\text {(lumi)} \text { pb} $ , measured using events with two opposite-sign, same-flavor lepton pairs produced in the mass region $60< m_{\ell ^+\ell ^-} < 120\,\text {GeV} $ , is consistent with standard model predictions. Differential cross sections are measured and are well described by the theoretical predictions. The Z boson branching fraction to four leptons is measured to be $\mathcal {B}(\mathrm{Z}\rightarrow 4\ell ) = 4.8 \pm 0.2\,\text {(stat)} \pm 0.2\,\text {(syst)} \pm 0.1\,\text {(theo)} \pm 0.1\,\text {(lumi)} \times 10^{-6}$ for events with a four-lepton invariant mass in the range $80< m_{4\ell } < 100\,\text {GeV} $ and a dilepton mass $m_{\ell \ell } > 4\,\text {GeV} $ for all opposite-sign, same-flavor lepton pairs. The results agree with standard model predictions. The invariant mass distribution of the four-lepton system is used to set limits on anomalous ZZZ and ZZ $\gamma $ couplings at 95% confidence level: $-0.0012<f_4^\mathrm{Z}<0.0010$ , $-0.0010<f_5^\mathrm{Z}<0.0013$ , $-0.0012<f_4^{\gamma }<0.0013$ , $-0.0012<f_5^{\gamma }< 0.0013$ .