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  1. A<sc>bstract</sc> A search for a new neutral gauge boson, Z′, produced in association with one or two jets, including at least one b jet, and decaying into a pair of muons is presented. The analysis uses proton-proton collision data collected with the CMS detector at$$ \sqrt{s}=13 $$ s=13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1. No significant deviation from background expectations is observed. Upper limits at 95% confidence level on the product of cross section, branching fraction to dimuons, acceptance, and efficiency, from 0.2 to 2 fb, are set for Z′boson masses between 125 and 350 GeV. Process-dependent products of acceptance and efficiency, and model-independent limits on the signal yield are provided. These are the only results to date in the 125–200 GeV mass range and the most stringent for b quark fusion production modes in the 200–350 GeV range, complementing inclusive Z′boson searches. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available July 1, 2027
  2. We present the measurement of π+ -argon inelastic cross sections using the ProtoDUNE single-phase liquid argon time projection chamber in the incident π+ kinetic energy range of 500–800 MeV in multiple exclusive channels (absorption, charge exchange, and the remaining inelastic interactions). The results of this analysis are important inputs to simulations of liquid argon neutrino experiments such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment and the Short Baseline Neutrino program at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. They will be employed to improve the modeling of final state interactions within neutrino event generators used by these experiments, as well as the modeling of π+ -argon secondary interactions within the liquid argon. This is the first measurement of π+ -argon absorption at this kinetic energy range as well as the first ever measurement of π+ -argon charge exchange. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 1, 2027
  3. A<sc>bstract</sc> A search is performed for dark matter produced in association with bottom quarks and a pair of electrons or muons in data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to 138 fb−1of integrated luminosity of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. For the first time at the LHC, the associated production of a bottom quark-antiquark pair and a new heavy neutral Higgs boson (H) that subsequently decays into a leptonically decaying Z boson and a pseudoscalar (a) is explored. The latter acts as a dark matter mediator in the context of the two Higgs doublet model plus a pseudoscalar (2HDM+a). Multivariate techniques that target a wide range of mass configurations for the H and a particles are used. The observations are consistent with the expectations from standard model processes. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the product of cross section and branching fraction of the new particles, ranging from 10−2pb for an H mass of 400 GeV to 10−3pb for an H mass of 2000 GeV. Constraints on the parameter space of a benchmark 2HDM+a model are derived and compared with expectations in the context of cosmological predictions. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 1, 2027
  4. A<sc>bstract</sc> A measurement of the angular structure of inclusive jets and those containing a prompt D0meson in proton-proton collisions at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV is presented. The data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 301 pb−1were collected by the CMS experiment in 2017. Two jet grooming algorithms, late-kTand soft drop, are used to study the intrajet radiation pattern using iterative Cambridge-Aachen declustering. The splitting-angle distributions of jets with transverse momentum (pT) of around 100 GeV, obtained with these two algorithms, show that there is a shift of the distribution for jets containing a prompt D0meson with respect to inclusive jets. The suppression of emissions at small angles observed in the late-kTgrooming approach is consistent with the dead-cone effect, whereas the similar suppression for splittings selected with the soft-drop algorithm appears to be induced by gluon splitting to charm quark-antiquark pairs at large angles. The measured distributions are corrected to the particle level and can be used to constrain model predictions for the substructure of high-pTcharm quark jets. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available May 1, 2027
  5. The 2x2 Demonstrator, a prototype for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) liquid argon (LAr) Near Detector, was exposed to the Neutrinos from the Main Injector (NuMI) neutrino beam at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). This detector is a prototype of a new modular design for a liquid argon time-projection chamber (LArTPC), comprising a two-by-two array of four modules, each further segmented into two optically isolated LArTPCs. The 2x2 Demonstrator features a number of pioneering technologies, including a low-profile resistive field shell to establish drift fields, native 3D ionization pixelated imaging, and a high-coverage dielectric light readout system. The 2.4-tonne active mass detector is flanked upstream and downstream by supplemental solid-scintillator tracking planes, repurposed from the MINERvA experiment, which track ionizing particles exiting the argon volume. The antineutrino beam data collected by the detector over a 4.5 day period in 2024 include over 30,000 neutrino interactions in the LAr active volume—the first neutrino interactions reported by a DUNE detector prototype. During its physics-quality run, the 2x2 Demonstrator operated at a nominal drift field of 500 V/cm and maintained good LAr purity, with a stable electron lifetime of approximately 1.25 ms. This paper describes the detector and supporting systems, summarizes the installation and commissioning, and presents the initial validation of collected NuMI beam and off-beam self-triggers. In addition, it highlights observed interactions in the detector volume, including candidate muon antineutrino events. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available March 1, 2027
  6. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next-generation neutrino experiment with a rich physics program that includes searches for the hypothetical phenomenon of proton decay. Utilizing liquid-argon time-projection chamber technology, DUNE is expected to achieve world-leading sensitivity in the proton decay channels that involve charged kaons in their final states. The first DUNE demonstrator, ProtoDUNE Single-Phase, was a 0.77 kt detector that operated from 2018 to 2020 at the CERN Neutrino Platform, exposed to a mixed hadron and electron test-beam with momenta ranging from 0.3 to 7  GeV/c . We present a selection of low-energy kaons among the secondary particles produced in hadronic reactions, using data from the 6 and 7  GeV/c beam runs. The selection efficiency is 1% and the sample purity 92%. The initial energies of the selected kaon candidates encompass the expected energy range of kaons originating from proton decay events in DUNE (below ∼200  MeV ). In addition, we demonstrate the capability of this detector technology to discriminate between kaons and other particles such as protons and muons, and provide a comprehensive description of their energy loss in liquid argon, which shows good agreement with the simulation. These results pave the way for future proton decay searches at DUNE. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available March 1, 2027
  7. Abstract In the standard model of particle physics, the masses of the W and Z bosons, the carriers of the weak interaction, are uniquely related. A precise determination of their masses is important because quantum loops of heavy, undiscovered particles could modify this relationship. Although the Z mass is known to the remarkable precision of 22 parts per million (2.0 MeV), the W mass is known much less precisely. A global fit to measured electroweak observables predicts the W mass with 6 MeV uncertainty1–3. Reaching a comparable experimental precision would be a sensitive and fundamental test of the standard model, made even more urgent by a recent challenge to the global fit prediction by a measurement from the CDF Collaboration at the Fermilab Tevatron collider4. Here we report the measurement of the W mass by the CMS Collaboration at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, based on a large data sample of W → μν events collected in 2016 at the proton–proton collision energy of 13 TeV. The measurement exploits a high-granularity maximum likelihood fit to the kinematic properties of muons produced in W decays. By combining an accurate determination of experimental effects with marked in situ constraints of theoretical inputs, we reach a precise measurement of the W mass, of 80,360.2 ± 9.9 MeV, in agreement with the standard model prediction. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 9, 2027
  8. A<sc>bstract</sc> Precision measurements of Higgs boson differential production cross sections are a key tool to probe the properties of the Higgs boson and test the standard model. New physics can affect both Higgs boson production and decay, leading to deviations from the distributions that are expected in the standard model. In this paper, combined measurements of differential spectra in a fiducial region matching the experimental selections are performed, based on analyses of four Higgs boson decay channels (γγ, ZZ(*), WW(*), and ττ) using proton-proton collision data recorded with the CMS detector at$$ \sqrt{s}=13 $$ s=13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1. The differential measurements are extrapolated to the full phase space and combined to provide the differential spectra. A measurement of the total Higgs boson production cross section is also performed using the γγ and ZZ decay channels, with a result of$$ {53.4}_{-2.9}^{+2.9}{\left(\textrm{stat}\right)}_{-1.8}^{+1.9}\left(\textrm{syst}\right) $$ 53.4−2.9+2.9 stat−1.8+1.9 syst pb, consistent with the standard model prediction of 55.6 ± 2.5 pb. The fiducial measurements are used to compute limits on Higgs boson couplings using theκ-framework and the SM effective field theory. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2027
  9. Abstract Constraints on Wilson coefficients (WCs) corresponding to dimension-6 operators of the standard model effective field theory (SMEFT) are determined from a simultaneous fit to seven sets of CMS measurements probing Higgs boson, electroweak vector boson, top quark, and multijet production. Measurements of electroweak precision observables are also included and provide complementary constraints to those from the CMS experiment. The CMS measurements, using LHC proton-proton collision data at$$\sqrt{s}=13\,\text {Te}\text {V} $$ s=13 Te , corresponding to integrated luminosities of 36.3 or 138$$\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$ fb-1 , are chosen to provide sensitivity to a broad set of operators, for which consistent SMEFT predictions can be derived. These are primarily measurements of differential cross sections which are parameterized as functions of the WCs. In measurements targeting$${\text {t}} (\bar{\textrm{t}})\text {X} $$ t( t¯ )X production, SMEFT effects are modelled at the detector level. Individual constraints on 64 WCs, and constraints on 43 linear combinations of WCs, are obtained. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2027
  10. A<sc>bstract</sc> A measurement of the substructure of bottom quark jets (b jets) in proton-proton (pp) collisions is presented. The measurement uses data collected in pp collisions at$$ \sqrt{s}=5.02 $$ s=5.02 TeV, with a low number of simultaneous interactions per bunch crossing, recorded by the CMS experiment in 2017, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 301 pb−1. An algorithm to identify and cluster the charged decay daughters of b hadrons is developed for this analysis, which facilitates the exposure of the gluon radiation pattern of b jets using iterative Cambridge-Aachen declustering. The soft-drop-groomed jet radius,Rg, and momentum balance,zg, of b quark jets are presented. These observables can be used to test perturbative quantum chromodynamics predictions that account for mass effects. Because the b hadron is partially reconstructed from its charged decay daughters, only charged particles are used for the jet substructure studies. In addition, a jet fragmentation function,zb,ch, is measured, which is defined as the distribution of the ratio of the transverse momentum (pT) of the partially reconstructed b hadron with respect to the charged-particle component of the jetpT. The substructure variable distributions are unfolded to the charged-particle level. The b jet substructure is compared to the substructure of jets in an inclusive jet sample that is dominated by light-quark and gluon jets in order to assess the role of the b quark mass. A strong suppression of emissions at smallRgvalues is observed for b jets when compared to inclusive jets, consistent with the dead-cone effect. The measurement is also compared with theoretical predictions from Monte Carlo event generators. This is the first substructure measurement of b jets that clusters together the b hadron decay daughters independent of the b hadron species and decay channel. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2027