Observation and Measurement of Forward Proton Scattering in Association with Lepton Pairs Produced via the Photon Fusion Mechanism at ATLAS
G. Aad, B. Abbott, D. C. Abbott, A. Abed Abud, K. Abeling, D. K. Abhayasinghe, S. H. Abidi, O. S. AbouZeid, N. L. Abraham, H. Abramowicz, H. Abreu, Y. Abulaiti, B. S. Acharya, B. Achkar, L. Adámek, C. Adam Bourdarios, L. Adamczyk, L. Adámek, J. Adelman, A. Adıgüzel, S. Adorni, T. Adye, A. A. Affolder, Y. Afik, C. Agapopoulou, M. N. Agaras, A. Aggarwal, C. Agheorghiesei, J. A. Aguilar–Saavedra, A. Ahmad, F. Ahmadov, W. S. Ahmed, X. Ai, G. Aielli, S. Akatsuka, M. Akbiyik, T. P. A. Åkesson, E. Akilli, A. V. Akimov, K. Al Khoury, G. L. Alberghi, J. Albert, M. J. Alconada Verzini, S. Alderweireldt, M. Aleksa, I. N. Aleksandrov, C. Alexa, T. Alexopoulos, A. Alfonsi, F. Alfonsi, M. Alhroob, B. Ali, S. Ali, M. Aliev, G. Alimonti, C. Allaire, B. M. M. Allbrooke, B. W. Allen, P. P. Allport, A. Aloisio, F. Alonso, C. Alpigiani, E. Alunno Camelia, M. Alvarez Estevez, M. G. Alviggi, Y. Amaral Coutinho, A. Ambler, L. Ambroz, Christoph Amelung, D. Amidei, S. P. Amor Dos Santos, S. Amoroso, C.S. Amrouche, F. F. An, C. Anastopoulos, N. Andari, T. Andeen, J. K. Anders, S. Y. Andrean, A. Andreazza, V. Andrei, C. R. Anelli, S. Angelidakis, A. Angerami, A. V. Anisenkov, A. Annovi, C. Antel, M. T. Anthony, E. Antipov, M. Antonelli, D. J. A. Antrim, F. Anulli, M. Aoki, J. A. Aparisi Pozo, M. A. Aparo, L. Aperio Bella, N. Aranzabal, V. Araujo Ferraz, R. Araujo Pereira, C. Arcangeletti
Abstract
The observation of forward proton scattering in association with lepton pairs (e^{+}e^{-}+p or μ^{+}μ^{-}+p) produced via photon fusion is presented. The scattered proton is detected by the ATLAS Forward Proton spectrometer, while the leptons are reconstructed by the central ATLAS detector. Proton-proton collision data recorded in 2017 at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt[s]=13 TeV are analyzed, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 14.6 fb^{-1}. A total of 57 (123) candidates in the ee+p (μμ+p) final state are selected, allowing the background-only hypothesis to be rejected with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations in each channel. Proton-tagging techniques are introduced for cross-section measurements in the fiducial detector acceptance, corresponding to σ_{ee+p}=11.0±2.6(stat)±1.2(syst)±0.3(lumi) and σ_{μμ+p}=7.2±1.6(stat)±0.9(syst)±0.2(lumi) fb in the dielectron and dimuon channel, respectively.