Measurement of the W^±Z boson pair-production cross section in pp collisions at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The production of W^±Z events in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV is measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The collected data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb⁻¹. The W^±Z candidates are reconstructed using leptonic decays of the gauge bosons into electrons or muons. The measured inclusive cross section in the detector fiducial region for leptonic decay modes is σ_{W^±Z→ℓ^′νℓℓ} ^fid.=63.2±3.2(stat.)±2.6(sys.)±1.5(lumi.) fb. In comparison, the next-to-leading-order Standard Model prediction is 53.4_−2.8 ^+3.6 fb. The extrapolation of the measurement from the fiducial to the total phase space yields σ_W^±Z ^tot.=50.6±2.6(stat.)±2.0(sys.)±0.9(th.)±1.2(lumi.) pb, in agreement with a recent next-to-next-to-leading-order calculation of 48.2_−1.0 ^+1.1 pb. The cross section as a function of jet multiplicity is also measured, together with the charge-dependent W⁺Z and W⁻Z cross sections and their ratio.