Abstract
The observation of forward proton scattering in association with lepton pairs ( or ) 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 are analyzed, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of . A total of 57 (123) candidates in the () 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 and in the dielectron and dimuon channel, respectively.
- Received 2 October 2020
- Revised 30 October 2020
- Accepted 23 November 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.261801
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© 2020 CERN, for the ATLAS Collaboration