Measurement of the Z boson differential cross section in transverse momentum and rapidity in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV
BMWFW (Austria) ; FWF (Austria) ; FNRS (Belgium) ; FWO (Belgium) ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) ; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) ; MES (Bulgaria) ; CERN ; CAS (China) ; MOST (China) ; NSFC (China) ; COLCIENCIAS (Colombia) ; MSES (Croatia) ; CSF (Croatia) ; RPF (Cyprus) ; MoER (Estonia) ; ERC IUT (Estonia) ; ERDF (Estonia) ; Academy of Finland (Finland) ; MEC (Finland) ; HIP (Finland) ; CEA (France) ; CNRS/IN2P3 (France) ; BMBF (Germany) ; DFG (Germany) ; HGF (Germany) ; GSRT (Greece) ; OTKA (Hungary) ; NIH (Hungary) ; DAE (India) ; DST (India) ; IPM (Iran) ; SFI (Ireland) ; INFN (Italy) ; MSIP (Republic of Korea) ; NRF (Republic of Korea) ; LAS (Lithuania) ; MOE (Malaysia) ; UM (Malaysia) ; CINVESTAV (Mexico) ; CONACYT (Mexico) ; SEP (Mexico) ; UASLP-FAI (Mexico) ; MBIE (New Zealand) ; PAEC (Pakistan) ; MSHE (Poland) ; NSC (Poland) ; FCT (Portugal) ; JINR (Dubna) ; MON (Russia) ; RosAtom (Russia) ; RAS (Russia) ; RFBR (Russia) ; MESTD (Serbia) ; SEIDI (Spain) ; CPAN (Spain) ; Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland) ; MST (Taipei) ; ThEPCenter (Thailand) ; IPST (Thailand) ; STAR (Thailand) ; NSTDA (Thailand) ; TUBITAK (Turkey) ; TAEK (Turkey) ; NASU (Ukraine) ; SFFR (Ukraine) ; STFC (United Kingdom) ; DOE (USA) ; NSF (USA) ; Marie-Curie program (European Union) ; European Research Council (European Union) ; EPLANET (European Union) ; Leventis Foundation ; A.P. Sloan Foundation ; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation ; Belgian Federal Science Policy Office ; Fonds pour la Formation a la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium) ; Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium) ; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic ; Council of Science and Industrial Research, India ; HOMING PLUS program of the Foundation for Polish Science ; European Union, Regional Development Fund ; Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino) ; Consorzio per la Fisica (Trieste) ; MIUR project (Italy) ; EU-ESF ; Greek NSRF ; National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund ; Science and Technology Facilities Council ; MIUR project (Italy): 20108T4XTM ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K003844/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/I005912/1 GRIDPP ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K003844/1 GRIDPP ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M005356/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K003542/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/J50094X/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: GRIDPP ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/I505580/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/J005665/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: CMS ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M004775/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/L00609X/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K001639/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/J004901/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/L005603/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K001256/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/L00609X/1 GRIDPP ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K001604/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/N000250/1 ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M005356/1 GRIDPP ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/I005912/1 ; We present a measurement of the Z boson differential cross section in rapidity and transverse momentum using a data sample of pp collision events at a centre-of-mass energy root s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The Z boson is identified via its decay to a pair of muons. The measurement provides a precision test of quantum chromodynamics over a large region of phase space. In addition, due to the small experimental uncertainties in the measurement the data has the potential to constrain the gluon parton distribution function in the kinematic regime important for Higgs boson production via gluon fusion. The results agree with the next-to-next-to-leading-order predictions computed with the fewz program. The results are also compared to the commonly used leading-order MADGRAPH and next-to-leading-order POWHEG generators. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the CMS Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license