Study of WW gamma and WZ gamma production in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV and search for anomalous quartic gauge couplings with the ATLAS experiment

Abstract

This paper presents a study of WW gamma and WZ gamma triboson production using events from proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb(-1). The WW gamma production cross-section is determined using a final state containing an electron, a muon, a photon, and neutrinos (e upsilon mu upsilon gamma). Upper limits on the production cross-section of the e upsilon mu upsilon gamma final state and theWW gamma and WZ gamma final states containing an electron or a muon, two jets, a photon, and a neutrino (e upsilon j j gamma or mu upsilon j j gamma) are also derived. The results are compared to the cross-sections predicted by the Standard Model at next-to-leading order in the strong-coupling constant. In addition, upper limits on the production cross-sections are derived in a fiducial region optimised for a search for newphysics beyond the Standard Model. The results are interpreted in the context of anomalous quartic gauge couplings using an effective field theory. Confidence intervals at 95% confidence level are derived for the 14 coupling coefficients to which WW gamma and WZ gamma production are sensitive.