Measurement of the inclusive WZ production cross section in pp collisions at √s=13.6 TeV

Abstract

The inclusive WZ production cross section is measured in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13.6 TeV, using data collected during 2022 with the CMS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34.7 fb(-1). The measurement uses multileptonic final states and a simultaneous likelihood fit to the number of events in four different lepton flavour categories: eee, ee mu, mu mu e, and mu mu mu. The selection is optimized to minimize the number of background events, and relies on an efficient prompt lepton discrimination strategy. The WZ production cross section is measured in a phase space defined within a 30 GeV window around the Z boson mass, as sigma(total) (pp -> WZ) = 55.2 +/- 1.2 (stat) +/- 1.2 (syst) +/- 0.8 (lumi) +/- 0.3 (theo) pb. In addition, the cross section is measured in a fiducial phase space closer to the detector-level requirements. All the measurements presented in this paper are in agreement with standard model predictions.