Measurement of the total and differential cross section of Z boson production in association with jets in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV

Z boson production in association with jets at the LHC is a major source of background to standard model searches and it provides a sensitive evaluation of the accuracy of perturbative QCD predictions. The production of a Z boson, decaying to two charged muons ($\mu$$^{+}$$\mu$$^{-}$), in association with jets in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV is presented. The cross sections and their ratios are measured with data recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2016, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{−1}$ . The cross sections are measured asa function of observables including the transverse momentum and rapidity of the Z boson, the jet transverse momentum and rapidity for the five highest momentum jets, and jet multiplicity. The measurements are compared with predictions from a multileg next-to-leading-order Monte Carlo generator and a next-to-next-to-leading order calculation with next-to-next-to-leading logarithm resummation and parton showering.