• Energy Research

This Letter presents the first measurements of the groomed jet radius $R_\mathrm{g}$ and the jet girth $g$ in events with an isolated photon recoiling against a jet in lead-lead (PbPb) and proton-proton (pp) collisions at the LHC at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV. The observables $R_\mathrm{g}$ and $g$ provide a quantitative measure of how narrow or broad a jet is. The analysis uses PbPb and pp data samples with integrated luminosities of 1.7 nb$^{-1}$ and 301 pb$^{-1}$, respectively, collected with the CMS experiment in 2018 and 2017. Events are required to have a photon with transverse momentum $p_\mathrm{T}^\gamma$ 100 GeV and at least one jet back-to-back in azimuth with respect to the photon and with transverse momentum $p_\mathrm{T}^\text{jet}$ such that $p_\mathrm{T}^\text{jet}/p_\mathrm{T}^\gamma$$>$ 0.4. The measured $R_\mathrm{g}$ and $g$ distributions are unfolded to the particle level, which facilitates the comparison between the PbPb and pp results and with theoretical predictions. It is found that jets with $p_\mathrm{T}^\text{jet}/p_\mathrm{T}^\gamma$$>$ 0.8, i.e., those that closely balance the photon $p_\mathrm{T}^\gamma$, are narrower in PbPb than in pp collisions. Relaxing the selection to include jets with $p_\mathrm{T}^\text{jet}/p_\mathrm{T}^\gamma$$>$ 0.4 reduces the narrowing of the angular structure of jets in PbPb relative to the pp reference. This shows that selection bias effects associated with jet energy loss play an important role in the interpretation of jet substructure measurements. Physics letters / B 861, 139088 (2025). doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2024.139088 Published by North-Holland Publ., Amsterdam

AbstractThe second-order (v2) and third-order (v3) Fourier coefficients describing the azimuthal anisotropy of prompt and nonprompt (from b-hadron decays) J/ψ, as well as prompt ψ(2S) mesons are measured in lead-lead collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of$$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}} $$sNN= 5.02 TeV. The analysis uses a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.61 nb−1recorded with the CMS detector. The J/ψ and ψ(2S) mesons are reconstructed using their dimuon decay channel. Thev2andv3coefficients are extracted using the scalar product method and studied as functions of meson transverse momentum and collision centrality. The measuredv2values for prompt J/ψ mesons are found to be larger than those for nonprompt J/ψ mesons. The prompt J/ψv2values at highpTare found to be underpredicted by a model incorporating only parton energy loss effects in a quark-gluon plasma medium. Prompt and nonprompt J/ψ mesonv3and prompt ψ(2S)v2andv3values are also reported for the first time, providing new information about heavy quark interactions in the hot and dense medium created in heavy ion collisions.

A search is presented for fractionally charged particles with charges below 1$e$, using their small energy loss in the tracking detector as a key variable to observe a signal. The analyzed dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions collected at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV in 2016–2018 at the CERN LHC. This is the first search at the LHC for new particles with a charge between $e$/3 and 0.9$e$, including an extension of previous results at a charge of 2$e$/3. Masses up to 640 GeV and charges as low as $e$/3 are excluded at 95% confidence level. These are the most stringent limits to date for the considered Drell-Yan-like production mode. Physical review letters 134(13), 131802 (2025). doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.131802 Published by APS, College Park, Md.

Abstract A description is presented of the algorithms used to reconstruct energy deposited in the CMS hadron calorimeter during Run 2 (2015–2018) of the LHC. During Run 2, the characteristic bunch-crossing spacing for proton-proton collisions was 25 ns, which resulted in overlapping signals from adjacent crossings. The energy corresponding to a particular bunch crossing of interest is estimated using the known pulse shapes of energy depositions in the calorimeter, which are measured as functions of both energy and time. A variety of algorithms were developed to mitigate the effects of adjacent bunch crossings on local energy reconstruction in the hadron calorimeter in Run 2, and their performance is compared.