Measurement and effective field theory interpretation of the photon-fusion production cross section of a pair of W bosons in proton-proton collisions at √(s) = 13 TeV

2026/01/29 by CMS Collaboration · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-ex

paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep06(2026)187

arxiv published 2026/01/29 · arxiv updated 2026/07/02

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 √(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 ⁺⁸²_-78 fb and 3.96 ^+0.53_-0.51 fb, respectively, in agreement with the standard model predictions of 631 ± 126 fb and 3.87 ± 0.77 fb. This agreement enables stringent constraints to be imposed on anomalous quartic gauge couplings within a dimension-8 effective field theory framework.

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Discussions

• #CMSpaper: Measurement and effective field theory interpretation of the photon-fusion production cross section of a pair of W bosons in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13.6 TeV (arXiv:2601.21574) htt [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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• Measurement of the cross section of top quark-antiquark pair production in association with a W boson in proton-proton collisions at √(s) = 13 TeV