Search for: All records

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions to gravitational wave (GW) signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by (1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, (2) calculating the degree of overlap among the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, (3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms among pairs of signals, and (4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by (1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and (2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the nondetection of GW lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects.

A study of the anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson to vector bosons, including$${\textit{CP}}$$$\mathrm{CP}$-violation effects, has been conducted using its production and decay in the WW channel. This analysis is performed on proton–proton collision data collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC during 2016–2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138$$\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$${\text{fb}}^{-1}$. The different-flavor dilepton$$({\textrm{e}} {{\upmu }})$$$\left(\text{e}\mu \right)$final state is analyzed, with dedicated categories targeting gluon fusion, electroweak vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or Z boson. Kinematic information from associated jets is combined using matrix element techniques to increase the sensitivity to anomalous effects at the production vertex. A simultaneous measurement of four Higgs boson couplings to electroweak vector bosons is performed in the framework of a standard model effective field theory. All measurements are consistent with the expectations for the standard model Higgs boson and constraints are set on the fractional contribution of the anomalous couplings to the Higgs boson production cross section.

Measurements of the charge-dependent two-particle angular correlation function in proton-lead (pPb) collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of$$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}} $$$\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$= 8.16 TeV and lead-lead (PbPb) collisions at$$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}} $$$\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$= 5.02 TeV are reported. The pPb and PbPb data sets correspond to integrated luminosities of 186 nb⁻¹and 0.607 nb⁻¹, respectively, and were collected using the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The charge-dependent correlations are characterized by balance functions of same- and opposite-sign particle pairs. The balance functions, which contain information about the creation time of charged particle pairs and the development of collectivity, are studied as functions of relative pseudorapidity (∆η) and relative azimuthal angle (∆ϕ), for various multiplicity and transverse momentum (p_T) intervals. A multiplicity dependence of the balance function is observed in ∆ηand ∆ϕfor both systems. The width of the balance functions decreases towards high-multiplicity collisions in the momentum region<2 GeV, for pPb and PbPb results. Integrals of the balance functions are presented in both systems, and a mild dependence of the charge-balancing fractions on multiplicity is observed. No multiplicity dependence is observed at higher transverse momentum. The data are compared withhydjet,hijing, andamptgenerator predictions, none of which capture completely the multiplicity dependence seen in the data. The comparison of results with different center-of-mass energies suggests that the balance functions become narrower at higher energies, which is consistent with the idea of delayed hadronization and the effect of radial flow.

A measurement is presented of a ratio observable that provides a measure of the azimuthal correlations among jets with large transverse momentum$$p_{\textrm{T}}$$$p_{\text{T}}$. This observable is measured in multijet events over the range of$$p_{\textrm{T}} = 360$$$p_{\text{T}}=360$–$$3170\,\text {Ge}\hspace{-.08em}\text {V} $$$3170\text{Ge}\text{V}$based on data collected by the CMS experiment in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13$$\,\text {Te}\hspace{-.08em}\text {V}$$$\text{Te}\text{V}$, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 134$$\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$${\text{fb}}^{-1}$. The results are compared with predictions from Monte Carlo parton-shower event generator simulations, as well as with fixed-order perturbative quantum chromodynamics (pQCD) predictions at next-to-leading-order (NLO) accuracy obtained with different parton distribution functions (PDFs) and corrected for nonperturbative and electroweak effects. Data and theory agree within uncertainties. From the comparison of the measured observable with the pQCD prediction obtained with the NNPDF3.1 NLO PDFs, the strong coupling at the Z boson mass scale is$$\alpha _\textrm{S} (m_{{\textrm{Z}}}) =0.1177 \pm 0.0013\, \text {(exp)} _{-0.0073}^{+0.0116} \,\text {(theo)} = 0.1177_{-0.0074}^{+0.0117}$$${\alpha }_{\text{S}}\left(m_{\text{Z}}\right)=0.1177\pm 0.0013{\text{(exp)}}_{-0.0073}^{+0.0116}\text{(theo)}=0.{1177}_{-0.0074}^{+0.0117}$, where the total uncertainty is dominated by the scale dependence of the fixed-order predictions. A test of the running of$$\alpha _\textrm{S}$$${\alpha }_{\text{S}}$in the$$\,\text {Te}\hspace{-.08em}\text {V}$$$\text{Te}\text{V}$region shows no deviation from the expected NLO pQCD behaviour.

Energy correlators that describe energy-weighted distances between two or three particles in a hadronic jet are measured using an event sample of$\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of$36.3{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. The measured distributions are consistent with the trends in the simulation that reveal two key features of the strong interaction: confinement and asymptotic freedom. By comparing the ratio of the measured three- and two-particle energy correlator distributions with theoretical calculations that resum collinear emissions at approximate next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic accuracy matched to a next-to-leading-order calculation, the strong coupling is determined at the$Z$boson mass:${\alpha }_S(m_Z)=0.1229_{-0.0050}^{+0.0040}$, the most precise${\alpha }_S(m_Z)$value obtained using jet substructure observables.