Observation of triple J/ψ meson production in proton-proton collisions

(CMS Collaboration) Giljanović, Duje; Godinović, Nikola; Lelas, Damir; Puljak, Ivica; Antunović, Željko; Kovač, Marko; Šćulac, Toni; Brigljević, Vuko; Ferenček, Dinko; Majumder, Devdatta; Roguljić, Matej; Starodumov, Andrey; Šuša, Tatjana; Bargassa, Pedrame; Đurić, Senka (2023) Observation of triple J/ψ meson production in proton-proton collisions. Nature Physics, 19 (3). pp. 338-350. ISSN 1745-2473

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Abstract

Protons consist of three valence quarks, two up-quarks and one down-quark, held together by gluons and a sea of quark-antiquark pairs. Collectively, quarks and gluons are referred to as partons. In a proton-proton collision, typically only one parton of each proton undergoes a hard scattering - referred to as single-parton scattering - leaving the remainder of each proton only slightly disturbed. Here, we report the study of double- and triple-parton scatterings through the simultaneous production of three J/psi mesons, which consist of a charm quark-antiquark pair, in proton-proton collisions recorded with the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. We observed this process - reconstructed through the decays of J/psi mesons into pairs of oppositely charged muons - with a statistical significance above five standard deviations. We measured the inclusive fiducial cross-section to be 272(-104)(+141) (stat) +/- 17 (syst) fb, and compared it to theoretical expectations for triple-J/psi meson production in single-, double- and triple-parton scattering scenarios. Assuming factorization of multiple hard-scattering probabilities in terms of single-parton scattering cross-sections, double- and triple-parton scattering are the dominant contributions for the measured process.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	high energy physics; experimental particle physics; LHC; CMS; p p: colliding beams; parton: multiple scattering; p p: scattering; charm: multiple production; J/psi(3100): multiple production; J/psi(3100): leptonic decay; muon: pair production; CERN SPS; factorization; transverse; hard scattering; CERN LHC Coll; error: statistical; channel cross section: measured; experimental results; 13000 GeV-cms
Subjects:	NATURAL SCIENCES NATURAL SCIENCES > Physics NATURAL SCIENCES > Physics > Physics of Elementary Particles and Fields
Divisions:	Division of Experimental Physics
Depositing User:	Dinko Ferenček
Date Deposited:	23 Apr 2024 10:25
URI:	http://fulir.irb.hr/id/eprint/8781
DOI:	10.1038/s41567-022-01838-y

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