A: The CMS apparatus was identified, a few years before the start of the LHC operation at CERN, to feature properties well suited to particle-flow (PF) reconstruction: a highly-segmented tracker, a fine-grained electromagnetic calorimeter, a hermetic hadron calorimeter, a strong magnetic field, and an excellent muon spectrometer. A fully-fledged PF reconstruction algorithm tuned to the CMS detector was therefore developed and has been consistently used in physics analyses for the first time at a hadron collider. For each collision, the comprehensive list of final-state particles identified and reconstructed by the algorithm provides a global event description that leads to unprecedented CMS performance for jet and hadronic τ decay reconstruction, missing transverse momentum determination, and electron and muon identification. This approach also allows particles from pileup interactions to be identified and enables efficient pileup mitigation methods. The data collected by CMS at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV show excellent agreement with the simulation and confirm the superior PF performance at least up to an average of 20 pileup interactions. 3 Reconstruction of the particle-flow elements 9 3.1 Charged-particle tracks and vertices 9 3.1.

Searches for invisible decays of the Higgs boson are presented. The data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC correspond to integrated luminosities of 5.1, 19.7, and 2.3 fb −1 at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV, respectively. The search channels target Higgs boson production via gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, and in association with a vector boson. Upper limits are placed on the branching fraction of the Higgs boson decay to invisible particles, as a function of the assumed production cross sections. The combination of all channels, assuming standard model production, yields an observed (expected) upper limit on the invisible branching fraction of 0.24 (0.23) at the 95% confidence level. The results are also interpreted in the context of Higgs-portal dark matter models. [6,7]. More generally, invisible Higgs boson decays can be realised through interactions between the Higgs boson and dark matter (DM) [8]. In Higgs-portal models [9][10][11][12], the Higgs boson acts as a mediator between SM and DM particles allowing for direct production of DM at the LHC. Furthermore, cosmological models proposing that the Higgs boson played a central role in the evolution of the early universe motivate the study of the relationship between the Higgs boson and DM [13, 14].Direct searches for invisible decays of the Higgs boson increase the sensitivity to the invisible Higgs boson width beyond the indirect constraints. The typical signature at the LHC is a large missing transverse momentum recoiling against a distinctive visible system. Previous searches by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations have targeted Higgs boson production in association with a vector boson (VH, where V denotes W or Z) [15][16][17] or with jets consistent with a vector boson fusion (VBF, via qq → qqH) topology [17, 18]. A combination of direct searches for invisible Higgs boson decays in qqH and VH production, by the ATLAS Collaboration, yields an upper limit of 0.25 on the Higgs boson invisible branching fraction, B(H → inv), at the 95% confidence level [19]. Additionally, searches by the ATLAS Collaboration for DM in events with missing transverse momentum accompanied by jets have been interpreted in the context of Higgs boson production via gluon fusion and subsequent decay to invisible particles [20].In this paper, results from a combination of searches for invisible decays of the Higgs boson using data collected during 2011, 2012, and 2015 are presented. The searches target the qqH, VH, and ggH production modes. The searches for the VH production mode include searches targeting ZH production, in which the Z boson decays to a pair of leptons (either e + e − or µ + µ − ) or bb, and searches for both the ZH and WH production modes, in which the W or Z boson decays to light-flavour jets. Additional sensitivity is achieved in this analysis by including a search targeting gluon fusion production where the Higgs boson is produced accompanied by a gluon jet (gg → gH). The diagrams for the qqH, VH, and ggH Higgs boson production pr...

The spectra of charged particles produced within the pseudorapidity window |η| < 1 at √ s NN = 5.02 TeV are measured using 404 µb −1 of PbPb and 27.4 pb −1 of pp data collected by the CMS detector at the LHC in 2015. The spectra are presented over the transverse momentum ranges spanning 0.5 < p T < 400 GeV in pp and 0.7 < p T < 400 GeV in PbPb collisions. The corresponding nuclear modification factor, R AA , is measured in bins of collision centrality. The R AA in the 5% most central collisions shows a maximal suppression by a factor of 7-8 in the p T region of 6-9 GeV. This dip is followed by an increase, which continues up to the highest p T measured, and approaches unity in the vicinity of p T = 200 GeV. The R AA is compared to theoretical predictions and earlier experimental results at lower collision energies. The newly measured pp spectrum is combined with the pPb spectrum previously published by the CMS collaboration to construct the pPb nuclear modification factor, R pA , up to 120 GeV. For p T > 20 GeV, R pA exhibits weak momentum dependence and shows a moderate enhancement above unity. The CMS collaboration 241 IntroductionThe charged-particle transverse momentum (p T ) spectrum is an important tool for studying parton energy loss in the dense QCD medium, known as the quark gluon plasma (QGP), that is produced in high energy nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions [1,2]. In such collisions, high-p T particles, which originate from parton fragmentation, are sensitive to the amount of energy loss that the partons experience traversing the medium. By comparing highp T particle yields in AA collisions to predictions of theoretical models, insight into the fundamental properties of the QGP can be gained. Over the years, a number of results have been made available by experiments at SPS [3,4], at RHIC [5][6][7][8], and at the CERN LHC [9][10][11]. The modification of high-p T particle production is typically quantified using the ratio of the charged-particle p T spectrum in AA collisions to that of pp collisions, scaled by the average number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions, N coll . This quantity is known as the nuclear modification factor, R AA , and can also be formulated as function of p T as R AA (p T ) = dN AA /dp T N coll dN pp /dp T = dN AA /dp T T AA dσ pp /dp T , ( 1) where N AA and N pp are the charged-particle yields in AA collisions and pp collisions, and σ pp is the charged-particle cross section in pp collisions. The ratio of N coll with the total inelastic pp cross section, defined as T AA = N coll /σ pp inel , is known as the nuclear overlap function and can be calculated from a Glauber model of the nuclear collision geometry [12]. In this work we adopt natural units, such that c = 1.-1 - JHEP04(2017)039The factor of 5 suppression observed in the R AA of charged hadrons and neutral pions at RHIC [5][6][7][8] was an indication of strong medium effects on particle production in the final state. However, the RHIC measurements were limited to a p T range below 25 GeV and a collision energy...

Charge-dependent azimuthal particle correlations with respect to the second-order event plane in p-Pb and PbPb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV have been studied with the CMS experiment at the LHC. The measurement is performed with a three-particle correlation technique, using two particles with the same or opposite charge within the pseudorapidity range jηj < 2.4, and a third particle measured in the hadron forward calorimeters (4.4 < jηj < 5). The observed differences between the same and opposite sign correlations, as functions of multiplicity and η gap between the two charged particles, are of similar magnitude in p-Pb and PbPb collisions at the same multiplicities. These results pose a challenge for the interpretation of charge-dependent azimuthal correlations in heavy ion collisions in terms of the chiral magnetic effect.

A search for the resonant production of high-mass photon pairs is presented. The search focuses on spin-0 and spin-2 resonances with masses between 0.5 and 4.5 TeV, and with widths, relative to the mass, between 1.4 × 10 −4 and 5.6 × 10 −2 . The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 12.9 fb −1 of proton-proton collisions collected with the CMS detector in 2016 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant excess is observed relative to the standard model expectation. The results of the search are combined statistically with those previously obtained in 2012 and 2015 at √ s = 8 and 13 TeV, respectively, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 19.7 and 3.3 fb −1 , to derive exclusion limits on scalar resonances produced through gluon-gluon fusion, and on Randall-Sundrum gravitons. The lower mass limits for Randall-Sundrum gravitons range from 1.95 to 4.45 TeV for coupling parameters between 0.01 and 0.2. These are the most stringent limits on Randall-Sundrum graviton production to date.The central feature of the CMS apparatus is a superconducting solenoid of 6 m internal diameter, providing a magnetic field of 3.8 T. Within the solenoid volume are a silicon pixel and strip tracker, a lead tungstate crystal electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL), and a brass and scintillator hadron calorimeter (HCAL). The tracking detectors cover the pseudorapidity range |η| < 2.5. The ECAL and HCAL, each composed of a barrel and two endcap sections, cover |η| < 3.0, with the boundary between the barrel and endcaps at around |η| = 1.5. Forward calorimeters extend the coverage to |η| < 5.0. The ECAL consists of 75 848 lead tungstate crystals. The barrel section has a granularity ∆η × ∆φ = 0.0174×0.0174, with φ the azimuthal angle, while the endcap sections have a granularity that coarsens progressively up to ∆η × ∆φ = 0.05×0.05. Preshower detectors consisting of two planes of silicon sensors interleaved with a total of 3X 0 of lead are located in front of the endcap sections. Muons are measured within |η| < 2.4 by gas-ionization detectors embedded in the steel flux-return yoke outside the solenoid. A more detailed description of the CMS detector, together with a definition of the coordinate system and the relevant kinematic variables, can be found in Ref. [30].