This paper describes the conclusions that can be drawn from the data taken thus far with the PHOBOS detector at RHIC. In the most central Au
+
Au collisions at the highest beam energy, evidence is ...found for the formation of a very high energy density system whose description in terms of simple hadronic degrees of freedom is inappropriate. Furthermore, the constituents of this novel system are found to undergo a significant level of interaction. The properties of particle production at RHIC energies are shown to follow a number of simple scaling behaviors, some of which continue trends found at lower energies or in simpler systems. As a function of centrality, the total number of charged particles scales with the number of participating nucleons. When comparing Au
+
Au at different centralities, the dependence of the yield on the number of participants at higher
p
T
(
∼
4
GeV
/
c
) is very similar to that at low transverse momentum. The measured values of charged particle pseudorapidity density and elliptic flow were found to be independent of energy over a broad range of pseudorapidities when effectively viewed in the rest frame of one of the colliding nuclei, a property we describe as “extended longitudinal scaling”. Finally, the centrality and energy dependences of several observables were found to factorize to a surprising degree.
In relativistic heavy-ion collisions, anisotropic collective flow is driven, event by event, by the initial eccentricity of the matter created in the nuclear overlap zone. Interpretation of the ...anisotropic flow data thus requires a detailed understanding of the effective initial source eccentricity of the event sample. In this paper, we investigate various ways of defining this effective eccentricity using the Monte Carlo Glauber (MCG) approach. In particular, we examine the participant eccentricity, which quantifies the eccentricity of the initial source shape by the major axes of the ellipse formed by the interaction points of the participating nucleons. We show that reasonable variation of the density parameters in the Glauber calculation, as well as variations in how matter production is modeled, do not significantly modify the already established behavior of the participant eccentricity as a function of collision centrality. Focusing on event-by-event fluctuations and correlations of the distributions of participating nucleons, we demonstrate that, depending on the achieved event-plane resolution, fluctuations in the elliptic flow magnitude v{sub 2} lead to most measurements being sensitive to the root-mean-square rather than the mean of the v{sub 2} distribution. Neglecting correlations among participants, we derive analytical expressions for the participant eccentricity cumulants as a function of the number of participating nucleons, N{sub part}, keeping nonnegligible contributions up to O(1/N{sub part}{sup 3}). We find that the derived expressions yield the same results as obtained from mixed-event MCG calculations which remove the correlations stemming from the nuclear collision process. Most importantly, we conclude from the comparison with MCG calculations that the fourth-order participant eccentricity cumulant does not approach the spatial anisotropy obtained assuming a smooth nuclear matter distribution. In particular, for the Cu+Cu system, these quantities deviate from each other by almost a factor of 2 over a wide range in centrality. This deviation reflects the essential role of participant spatial correlations in the interaction of two nuclei.
New sets of parameters (“tunes”) for the underlying-event (UE) modelling of the
pythia
8,
pythia6
and
herwig++
Monte Carlo event generators are constructed using different parton distribution ...functions. Combined fits to CMS UE proton–proton (
p
p
) data at
s
=
7
TeV
and to UE proton–antiproton (
p
p
¯
) data from the CDF experiment at lower
s
, are used to study the UE models and constrain their parameters, providing thereby improved predictions for proton–proton collisions at 13
TeV
. In addition, it is investigated whether the values of the parameters obtained from fits to UE observables are consistent with the values determined from fitting observables sensitive to double-parton scattering processes. Finally, comparisons are presented of the UE tunes to “minimum bias” (MB) events, multijet, and Drell–Yan (
q
q
¯
→
Z
/
γ
∗
→
lepton-antilepton+jets) observables at 7 and 8
TeV
, as well as predictions for MB and UE observables at 13
TeV
.
Properties of the Higgs boson with mass near 125 GeV are measured in proton-proton collisions with the CMS experiment at the LHC. Comprehensive sets of production and decay measurements are combined. ...The decay channels include gammagamma, ZZ, WW, tautau, bb, and mumu pairs. The data samples were collected in 2011 and 2012 and correspond to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1fb^-1 at 7 TeV and up to 19.7 fb^-1 at 8 TeV. From the high-resolution gammagamma and ZZ channels, the mass of the Higgs boson is determined to be 125.02^+0.26_-0.27(stat)^+0.14_-0.15(syst)GeV. For this mass value, the event yields obtained in the different analyses tagging specific decay channels and production mechanisms are consistent with those expected for the standard model Higgs boson. The combined best-fit signal relative to the standard model expectation is 1.00 +/- 0.09(stat)^+0.08_-0.07(theo) +/- 0.07(syst) at the measured mass. The couplings of the Higgs boson are probed for deviations in magnitude from the standard model predictions in multiple ways, including searches for invisible and undetected decays. No significant deviations are found.
A
bstract
A search for direct top squark pair production is presented. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded by the CMS experiment at the ...LHC during 2016, 2017, and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb
−1
. The search is carried out using events with a single isolated electron or muon, multiple jets, and large transverse momentum imbalance. The observed data are consistent with the expectations from standard model processes. Exclusions are set in the context of simplified top squark pair production models. Depending on the model, exclusion limits at 95% confidence level for top squark masses up to 1.2 TeV are set for a massless lightest supersymmetric particle, assumed to be the neutralino. For models with top squark masses of 1 TeV, neutralino masses up to 600 GeV are excluded.
A study is presented of the mass and spin-parity of the new boson recently observed at the LHC at a mass near 125 GeV. An integrated luminosity of 17.3 fb(-1), collected by the CMS experiment in ...proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, is used. The measured mass in the ZZ channel, where both Z bosons decay to e or μ pairs, is 126.2 ± 0.6(stat) ± 0.2(syst) GeV. The angular distributions of the lepton pairs in this channel are sensitive to the spin-parity of the boson. Under the assumption of spin 0, the present data are consistent with the pure scalar hypothesis, while disfavoring the pure pseudoscalar hypothesis.
The azimuthal anisotropy Fourier coefficients (v_{n}) in 8.16 TeV p+Pb data are extracted via long-range two-particle correlations as a function of the event multiplicity and compared to ...corresponding results in pp and PbPb collisions. Using a four-particle cumulant technique, v_{n} correlations are measured for the first time in pp and p+Pb collisions. The v_{2} and v_{4} coefficients are found to be positively correlated in all collision systems. For high-multiplicity p+Pb collisions, an anticorrelation of v_{2} and v_{3} is observed, with a similar correlation strength as in PbPb data at the same multiplicity. The new correlation results strengthen the case for a common origin of the collectivity seen in p+Pb and PbPb collisions in the measured multiplicity range.
A
bstract
A search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a W-boson pair at the LHC is reported. The event sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 fb
−1
and 19.4 fb
−1
collected ...with the CMS detector in pp collisions at
= 7 and 8 TeV, respectively. The Higgs boson candidates are selected in events with two or three charged leptons. An excess of events above background is observed, consistent with the expectation from the standard model Higgs boson with a mass of around 125 GeV. The probability to observe an excess equal or larger than the one seen, under the background-only hypothesis, corresponds to a significance of 4.3 standard deviations for
m
H
= 125.6 GeV. The observed signal cross section times the branching fraction to WW for
m
H
= 125.6 GeV is
times the standard model expectation. The spin-parity
J
P
= 0
+
hypothesis is favored against a narrow resonance with
J
P
= 2
+
or
J
P
= 0
−
that decays to a W-boson pair. This result provides strong evidence for a Higgs-like boson decaying to a W-boson pair.