CEP signal to background separation with the CMS Precision Proton Spectrometer at the HL-LHC.

This report contains the first feasibility study of the signal to background separation for Central exclusive production with the CMS Proton Precision Spectrometer (PPS) at the HL-LHC. In the framework of the CERN Summer Student program 2021 the study has been performed with simulated proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV. The goal was to define a selection procedure to discriminate between protons coming from pile-up collisions combined with the signature of the Drell-Yan background process $pp\rightarrow Z \rightarrow \mu^+ \mu^-$ and pairs of protons coming from the signal $pp \rightarrow \mu^{-} \mu^{+} p'p'$. The project includes two possible scenarios of PPS timing resolution of 50 ns and 20 ns and reports the relative sensitivity for CEP signals at the HL-LHC.