Alfonso Albero, AlejandroCalvo Gomez, M.Camboni, AlessandroCoquereau, SamuelGarrido Beltrán, LluísGascón Fora, DavidGironella Gironell, PereGraciani Díaz, RicardoGraugés Pous, EugeniVazquez Gomez, R.LHCb collaboration2022-06-092022-06-0920180370-2693https://hdl.handle.net/2445/186517The decay Z → b¯ b is reconstructed in pp collision data, corresponding to 2 fb−1 of integrated luminosity, collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 8 TeV. The product of the Z production cross-section and the Z → b¯ b branching fraction is measured for candidates in the fiducial region defined by two particle-level b-quark jets with pseudorapidities in the range 2.2 < η < 4.2, with transverse momenta pT > 20 GeV and dijet invariant mass in the range 45 < m jj < 165 GeV. From a signal yield of 5462 ± 763 Z → b¯ b events, where the uncertainty is statistical, a production cross-section times branching fraction of 332 ± 46 ± 59 pb is obtained, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measured significance of the signal yield is 6.0 standard deviations. This measurement represents the first observation of the Z → b¯ b production in the forward region of pp collisions.10 p.application/pdfengcc-by (c) Alfonso Albero, Alejandro et al., 2018https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/HadronsGran Col·lisionador d'HadronsFísica de partículesExperimentsHadronsLarge Hadron Collider (France and Switzerland)Particle physicsExperimentsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article6847232022-06-09info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess