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In the last two years the CMS experiment has commissioned a full end to end data quality monitoring system in tandem with progress in the detector commissioning. We present the data quality monitoring and certification systems in place, from online data taking to delivering certified data sets for physics analyses, release validation and offline re-reconstruction activities at Tier-1s. We discuss the main results and lessons learnt so far in the commissioning and early detector operation. We outline our practical operations arrangements and the key technical implementation aspects.

A Consortium between four LHC Computing Centers (Bari, Milano, Pisa and Trieste) has been formed in 2010 to prototype Analysis-oriented facilities for CMS data analysis, profiting from a grant from the Italian Ministry of Research. The Consortium aims to realize an ad-hoc infrastructure to ease the analysis activities on the huge data set collected at the LHC Collider. While “Tier2” Computing Centres, specialized in organized processing tasks like Monte Carlo simulation, are nowadays a well established concept, with years of running experience, site specialized towards end user chaotic analysis activities do not yet have a defacto standard implementation. In our effort, we focus on all the aspects that can make the analysis tasks easier for a physics user not expert in computing. On the storage side, we are experimenting on storage techniques allowing for remote data access and on storage optimization on the typical analysis access patterns. On the networking side, we are studying the differences between flat and tiered LAN architecture, also using virtual partitioning of the same physical networking for the different use patterns. Finally, on the user side, we are developing tools and instruments to allow for an exhaustive monitoring of their processes at the site, and for an efficient support system in case of problems. We will report about the results of the test executed on different subsystem and give a description of the layout of the infrastructure in place at the site participating to the consortium.

In 2012, 14 Italian institutions participating in LHC Experiments won a grant from the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR), with the aim of optimising analysis activities, and in general the Tier2 Tier3 infrastructure. We report on the activities being researched upon, on the considerable improvement in the ease of access to resources by physicists, also those with no specific computing interests. We focused on items like distributed storage federations, access to batch-like facilities, provisioning of user interfaces on demand and cloud systems. R&D on next-generation databases, distributed analysis interfaces, and new computing architectures was also carried on. The project, ending in the first months of 2016, will produce a white paper with recommendations on best practices for data-analysis support by computing centers.

The Italian community in CMS has built a geographically distributed network in which all the data stored in the Italian region are available to all the users for their everyday work. This activity involves at different level all the CMS centers: the Tier1 at CNAF, all the four Tier2s (Bari, Rome, Legnaro and Pisa), and few Tier3s (Trieste, Perugia, Torino, Catania, Napoli, ...). The federation uses the new network connections as provided by GARR, our NREN (National Research and Education Network), which provides a minimum of 10 Gbit/s to all the sites via the GARR-X[2] project. The federation is currently based on Xrootd[1] technology, and on a Redirector aimed to seamlessly connect all the sites, giving the logical view of a single entity. A special configuration has been put in place for the Tier1, CNAF, where ad-hoc Xrootd changes have been implemented in order to protect the tape system from excessive stress, by not allowing WAN connections to access tape only files, on a file-by-file basis. In order to improve the overall performance while reading files, both in terms of bandwidth and latency, a hierarchy of xrootd redirectors has been implemented. The solution implemented provides a dedicated Redirector where all the INFN sites are registered, without considering their status (T1, T2, or T3 sites). An interesting use case were able to cover via the federation are disk-less Tier3s. The caching solution allows to operate a local storage with minimal human intervention: transfers are automatically done on a single file basis, and the cache is maintained operational by automatic removal of old files.

In 2012, 14 Italian Institutions participating LHC Experiments (10 in CMS) have won a grant from the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR), to optimize Analysis activities and in general the Tier2/Tier3 infrastructure. A large range of activities is actively carried on: they cover data distribution over WAN, dynamic provisioning for both scheduled and interactive processing, design and development of tools for distributed data analysis, and tests on the porting of CMS software stack to new highly performing / low power architectures.

We derive model-independent constraints on four-fermion contact interaction-type dynamics from the published preliminary LEP2 experimental data on e+e- annihilation into \\(\\mu^+\\mu^-\\) and \\(\\tau^+\\tau^-\\) pairs, measured at different energies between 130 and 207 GeV. The basic observables are chosen to be the total cross section and the forward-backward asymmetry, and the analysis realistically takes into account data uncertainties and correlations among measurements at the various energies. The combination of data from different energy points plays an important role in the determination of regions allowed for the contact interaction coupling constants. In contrast to the more common one-parameter analyses, we only obtain constraints on pairs of parameters rather than limits on individual ones.

A search is presented for additional scalar (H) or pseudoscalar (A) Higgs bosons decaying to a top quark pair in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data set analyzed corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb − 1 collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Final states with one or two charged leptons are considered. The invariant mass of the reconstructed top quark pair system and variables that are sensitive to the spin of the particles decaying into the top quark pair are used to search for signatures of the H or A bosons. The interference with the standard model top quark pair background is taken into account. A moderate signal-like deviation compatible with an A boson with a mass of 400 GeV is observed with a global significance of 1.9 standard deviations. New stringent constraints are reported on the strength of the coupling of the hypothetical bosons to the top quark, with the mass of the bosons ranging from 400 to 750 GeV and their total relative width from 0.5 to 25%. The results of the search are also interpreted in a minimal supersymmetric standard model scenario. Values of m A from 400 to 700 GeV are probed, and a region with values of tan β below 1.0 to 1.5, depending on m A , is excluded at 95% confidence level.

This paper reports on a search for an extension to the scalar sector of the standard model, where a new CP-even (odd) boson decays to a Z boson and a lighter CP-odd (even) boson, and the latter further decays to a b quark pair. The Z boson is reconstructed via its decays to electron or muon pairs. The analysed data were recorded in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy$$ \\sqrt{s} $$s = 13 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC during 2016, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb − 1 . Data and predictions from the standard model are in agreement within the uncertainties. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the production cross section times branching fraction, with masses of the new bosons up to 1000 GeV. The results are interpreted in the context of the two-Higgs-doublet model.

Events with no charged particles produced between the two leading jets are studied in proton-proton collisions at

A search is presented for$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ slepton pairs produced in proton–proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13$$\\,\\text {TeV}$$TeV . The search is carried out in events containing two$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ leptons in the final state, on the assumption that each$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ slepton decays primarily to a$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ lepton and a neutralino. Events are considered in which each$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ lepton decays to one or more hadrons and a neutrino, or in which one of the$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ leptons decays instead to an electron or a muon and two neutrinos. The data, collected with the CMS detector in 2016 and 2017, correspond to an integrated luminosity of 77.2$$\\,\\text {fb}^{-1}$$fb - 1 . The observed data are consistent with the standard model background expectation. The results are used to set 95% confidence level upper limits on the cross section for$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ slepton pair production in various models for$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ slepton masses between 90 and 200$$\\,\\text {GeV}$$GeV and neutralino masses of 1, 10, and 20$$\\,\\text {GeV}$$GeV . In the case of purely left-handed$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ slepton production and decay to a$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ lepton and a neutralino with a mass of 1$$\\,\\text {GeV}$$GeV , the strongest limit is obtained for a$${\\uptau }_{}^{}$$τ slepton mass of 125$$\\,\\text {GeV}$$GeV at a factor of 1.14 larger than the theoretical cross section.