Measurement of the differential cross sections for the associated production of a $W$ boson and jets in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

Abstract

A measurement of the differential cross sections for a $W$ boson produced in association with jets in the muon decay channel is presented. The measurement is based on 13 TeV proton-proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.2  fb$^{−1}$, recorded by the CMS detector at the LHC. The cross sections are reported as functions of jet multiplicity, jet transverse momentum $p_T$, jet rapidity, the scalar $p_T$ sum of the jets, and angular correlations between the muon and each jet for different jet multiplicities. The measured cross sections are in agreement with predictions that include multileg leading-order (LO) and next-to-LO matrix element calculations interfaced with parton showers, as well as a next-to-next-to-LO calculation for the $W$ boson and one jet production.