Using Vector Boson Fusion Processes to Understand Particles and Interactions at TeV Scales*

For decades, physicists have relied on the Standard Model (SM) as a cohesive explanation of how particles and forces relate. Though the SM has agreed with countless experimental observations, it still fails to answer some fundamental questions in physics. Development of theories that incorporate additional interactions is an attempt to address shortcomings of the SM. A shared characteristic of these theories is the manifestation of new particles with TeV scale masses that can be probed by collider experiments. Focus of this research is on the search for new heavy gauge bosons produced inside the CMS experiment at the LHC by targeting a rare, distinct production mechanism called Vector Boson Fusion (VBF). Focus is on a VBF-produced Z', which decays to a pair of W bosons that decay leptonically to an electron and muon. Current work consists of developing a data-driven methodology to determine contributions from SM backgrounds in the signal region. This study will investigate how efficiently the experiment can identify the pair of jets characteristic of a VBF process in the forward regions of the detector. The integrated luminosity of pp data collected by CMS will allow this analysis to achieve discovery reach for Z' masses out to 2 TeV.