Observation of electroweak W±Z boson pair production in association with two jets in pp collisions at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

An observation of electroweak W±Zproduction in association with two jets in proton–proton collisions is presented. The data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2016 at a centre-of-mass energy of √s=13TeVare used, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1fb−1. Events containing three identified leptons, either electrons or muons, and two jets are selected. The electroweak production of W±Zbosons in association with two jets is measured with an observed significance of 5.3standard deviations. A fiducial cross-section for electroweak production including interference effects and for a single leptonic decay mode is measured to be σWZjj−EW=0.57 +0.14−0.13(stat.) +0.07−0.06(syst.) fb. Total and differential fiducial cross-sections of the sum of W±Zjjelectroweak and strong productions for several kinematic observables are also measured.