Electroweak production of Z bosons with forward-backward jets at CMS

Abstract

The first measurement of the electroweak production cross section of a Z boson with two jets (EWK Zjj) in proton-proton collisions at p s = 7 TeV is discussed. Proton-proton data, recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 fb 1 , is used to measure s ( EWK Zjj ) = 154 24 stat 46 exp 27 th 3 lumi fb in agreement with the standard model prediction. The result establishes the basis for the more general study of vector boson fusion processes: Higgs boson searches, anomalous electroweak gauge couplings and the scattering of vector bosons.