Eur. Phys. J. C (2024) 84: 1064
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13311-6

Regular Article

Fiducial and differential cross-section measurements of electroweak $W\gamma jj$ production in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS detector

¹ Department of Physics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
² Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
³ Department of Physics, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey
⁴ Division of Physics, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Ankara, Turkey
⁵ LAPP, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS/IN2P3, Annecy, France
⁶ APC, Université Paris Cité, CNRS/IN2P3, Paris, France
⁷ High Energy Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, USA
⁸ Department of Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
⁹ Department of Physics, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA
¹⁰ Physics Department, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
¹¹ Physics Department, National Technical University of Athens, Zografou, Greece
¹² Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
¹³ Institute of Physics, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, Baku, Azerbaijan
¹⁴ Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain
¹⁵ Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
¹⁶ Physics Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
¹⁷ Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
¹⁸ School of Science, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, China
¹⁹ University of Chinese Academy of Science (UCAS), Beijing, China
²⁰ Institute of Physics, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
²¹ Department for Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
²² Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
²³ University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
²⁴ Institut für Physik, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
²⁵ Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics and Laboratory for High Energy Physics, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
²⁶ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
²⁷ Department of Physics, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
²⁸ Department of Physics Engineering, Gaziantep University, Gaziantep, Turkey
²⁹ Department of Physics, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey
³⁰ Facultad de Ciencias y Centro de Investigaciónes, Universidad Antonio Nariño, Bogotá, Colombia
³¹ Departamento de Física, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
³² Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia A. Righi, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
³³ INFN Sezione di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
³⁴ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany
³⁵ Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
³⁶ Department of Physics, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA
³⁷ Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania
³⁸ Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest, Romania
³⁹ Department of Physics, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania
⁴⁰ National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, Physics Department, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
⁴¹ National University of Science and Technology Politechnica, Bucharest, Romania
⁴² West University in Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania
⁴³ Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
⁴⁴ Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
⁴⁵ Department of Subnuclear Physics, Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Kosice, Slovak Republic
⁴⁶ Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA
⁴⁷ Departamento de Física, y CONICET, Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires (IFIBA), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
⁴⁸ California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA
⁴⁹ Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
⁵⁰ Department of Physics, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
⁵¹ iThemba Labs, Western Cape, South Africa
⁵² Department of Mechanical Engineering Science, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
⁵³ National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines Diliman (Philippines), Quezon City, Philippines
⁵⁴ University of South Africa, Department of Physics, Pretoria, South Africa
⁵⁵ University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa
⁵⁶ School of Physics, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
⁵⁷ Department of Physics, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
⁵⁸ Faculté des Sciences Ain Chock, Université Hassan II de Casablanca, Morocco
⁵⁹ Faculté des Sciences, Université Ibn-Tofail, Kenitra, Morocco
⁶⁰ Faculté des Sciences Semlalia, Université Cadi Ayyad, LPHEA-Marrakech, Marrakesh, Morocco
⁶¹ LPMR, Faculté des Sciences, Université Mohamed Premier, Oujda, Morocco
⁶² Faculté des sciences, Université Mohammed V, Rabat, Morocco
⁶³ Institute of Applied Physics, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Ben Guerir, Morocco
⁶⁴ CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
⁶⁵ Affiliated with an institute covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
⁶⁶ Affiliated with an international laboratory covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
⁶⁷ Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
⁶⁸ LPC, Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS/IN2P3, Clermont-Ferrand, France
⁶⁹ Nevis Laboratory, Columbia University, Irvington, NY, USA
⁷⁰ Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
⁷¹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università della Calabria, Rende, Italy
⁷² INFN Gruppo Collegato di Cosenza, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Italy
⁷³ Physics Department, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA
⁷⁴ Physics Department, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA
⁷⁵ National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Agia Paraskevi, Greece
⁷⁶ Department of Physics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
⁷⁷ Oskar Klein Centre, Stockholm, Sweden
⁷⁸ Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg and Zeuthen, Germany
⁷⁹ Fakultät Physik, Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
⁸⁰ Institut für Kern- und Teilchenphysik, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
⁸¹ Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
⁸² SUPA-School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
⁸³ INFN e Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Italy
⁸⁴ Physikalisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
⁸⁵ II. Physikalisches Institut, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
⁸⁶ Département de Physique Nucléaire et Corpusculaire, Université de Genève, Geneve, Switzerland
⁸⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, Genoa, Italy
⁸⁸ INFN Sezione di Genova, Genoa, Italy
⁸⁹ II. Physikalisches Institut, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Giessen, Germany
⁹⁰ SUPA-School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
⁹¹ LPSC, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS/IN2P3, Grenoble INP, Grenoble, France
⁹² Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
⁹³ Department of Modern Physics and State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
⁹⁴ Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science and Key Laboratory of Particle Physics and Particle Irradiation (MOE), Shandong University, Qingdao, China
⁹⁵ School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Key Laboratory for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (MOE), SKLPPC, Shanghai, China
⁹⁶ Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai, China
⁹⁷ School of Physics and Microelectronics, Zhengzhou University, China
⁹⁸ Kirchhoff-Institut für Physik, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
⁹⁹ Physikalisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
¹⁰⁰ Department of Physics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin N.T., Hong Kong, China
¹⁰¹ Department of Physics, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
¹⁰² Department of Physics and Institute for Advanced Study, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
¹⁰³ Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
¹⁰⁴ IJCLab, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS/IN2P3, 91405, Orsay, France
¹⁰⁵ Centro Nacional de Microelectrónica (IMB-CNM-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
¹⁰⁶ Department of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
¹⁰⁷ INFN Gruppo Collegato di Udine, Sezione di Trieste, Udine, Italy
¹⁰⁸ ICTP, Trieste, Italy
¹⁰⁹ Dipartimento Politecnico di Ingegneria e Architettura, Università di Udine, Udine, Italy
¹¹⁰ INFN Sezione di Lecce, Lecce, Italy
¹¹¹ Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy
¹¹² INFN Sezione di Milano, Milan, Italy
¹¹³ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano, Milan, Italy
¹¹⁴ INFN Sezione di Napoli, Naples, Italy
¹¹⁵ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Napoli, Naples, Italy
¹¹⁶ INFN Sezione di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
¹¹⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
¹¹⁸ INFN Sezione di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
¹¹⁹ Dipartimento di Fisica E. Fermi, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
¹²⁰ INFN Sezione di Roma, Rome, Italy
¹²¹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
¹²² INFN Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
¹²³ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
¹²⁴ INFN Sezione di Roma Tre, Rome, Italy
¹²⁵ Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università Roma Tre, Rome, Italy
¹²⁶ INFN-TIFPA, Rome, Italy
¹²⁷ Università degli Studi di Trento, Trento, Italy
¹²⁸ Universität Innsbruck, Department of Astro and Particle Physics, Innsbruck, Austria
¹²⁹ University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
¹³⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
¹³¹ Istinye University, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey
¹³² Departamento de Engenharia Elétrica, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Juiz de Fora, Brazil
¹³³ Universidade Federal do Rio De Janeiro COPPE/EE/IF, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
¹³⁴ Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
¹³⁵ Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
¹³⁶ Federal University of Bahia, Bahia, Brazil
¹³⁷ KEK, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, Tsukuba, Japan
¹³⁸ Graduate School of Science, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan
¹³⁹ AGH University of Krakow, Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, Krakow, Poland
¹⁴⁰ Marian Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
¹⁴¹ Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland
¹⁴² Faculty of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
¹⁴³ Research Center for Advanced Particle Physics and Department of Physics, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
¹⁴⁴ L2IT, Université de Toulouse, CNRS/IN2P3, UPS, Toulouse, France
¹⁴⁵ Instituto de Física La Plata, Universidad Nacional de La Plata and CONICET, La Plata, Argentina
¹⁴⁶ Physics Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
¹⁴⁷ Oliver Lodge Laboratory, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
¹⁴⁸ Department of Experimental Particle Physics, Jožef Stefan Institute and Department of Physics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
¹⁴⁹ School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
¹⁵⁰ Department of Physics, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, UK
¹⁵¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK
¹⁵² Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, USA
¹⁵³ Fysiska institutionen, Lunds universitet, Lund, Sweden
¹⁵⁴ Departamento de Física Teorica C-15 and CIAFF, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
¹⁵⁵ Institut für Physik, Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany
¹⁵⁶ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
¹⁵⁷ CPPM, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS/IN2P3, Marseille, France
¹⁵⁸ Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA
¹⁵⁹ Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
¹⁶⁰ School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
¹⁶¹ Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
¹⁶² Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
¹⁶³ Group of Particle Physics, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada
¹⁶⁴ Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
¹⁶⁵ Max-Planck-Institut für Physik (Werner-Heisenberg-Institut), Munich, Germany
¹⁶⁶ Graduate School of Science and Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
¹⁶⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
¹⁶⁸ Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics, Radboud University/Nikhef, Nijmegen, Netherlands
¹⁶⁹ Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics and University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
¹⁷⁰ Department of Physics, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA
¹⁷¹ New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
¹⁷² United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
¹⁷³ Department of Physics, New York University, New York, NY, USA
¹⁷⁴ Ochanomizu University, Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
¹⁷⁵ Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
¹⁷⁶ Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
¹⁷⁷ Department of Physics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
¹⁷⁸ Palacký University, Joint Laboratory of Optics, Olomouc, Czech Republic
¹⁷⁹ Institute for Fundamental Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
¹⁸⁰ Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
¹⁸¹ Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
¹⁸² Department of Physics, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
¹⁸³ LPNHE, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, CNRS/IN2P3, Paris, France
¹⁸⁴ Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
¹⁸⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
¹⁸⁶ Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas-LIP, Lisbon, Portugal
¹⁸⁷ Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
¹⁸⁸ Departamento de Física, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
¹⁸⁹ Centro de Física Nuclear da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
¹⁹⁰ Departamento de Física, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal
¹⁹¹ Departamento de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
¹⁹² Departamento de Física, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
¹⁹³ Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
¹⁹⁴ Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
¹⁹⁵ Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Prague, Czech Republic
¹⁹⁶ Particle Physics Department, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, UK
¹⁹⁷ IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
¹⁹⁸ Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
¹⁹⁹ Departamento de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
²⁰⁰ Millennium Institute for Subatomic physics at high energy frontier (SAPHIR), Santiago, Chile
²⁰¹ Instituto de Investigación Multidisciplinario en Ciencia y Tecnología y Departamento de Física, Universidad de La Serena, La Serena, Chile
²⁰² Universidad Andres Bello, Department of Physics, Santiago, Chile
²⁰³ Instituto de Alta Investigación, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile
²⁰⁴ Departamento de Física, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaiso, Chile
²⁰⁵ Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
²⁰⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
²⁰⁷ Department of Physics, Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan
²⁰⁸ Department Physik, Universität Siegen, Siegen, Germany
²⁰⁹ Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
²¹⁰ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford, CA, USA
²¹¹ Department of Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
²¹² Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
²¹³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
²¹⁴ School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
²¹⁵ Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
²¹⁶ E. Andronikashvili Institute of Physics, Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
²¹⁷ High Energy Physics Institute, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
²¹⁸ University of Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia
²¹⁹ Department of Physics, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
²²⁰ Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
²²¹ Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
²²² International Center for Elementary Particle Physics and Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
²²³ Department of Physics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
²²⁴ Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
²²⁵ TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC, Canada
²²⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
²²⁷ Division of Physics and Tomonaga Center for the History of the Universe, Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
²²⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
²²⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
²³⁰ University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
²³¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden
²³² Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA
²³³ Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC), Centro Mixto Universidad de Valencia - CSIC, Valencia, Spain
²³⁴ Department of Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
²³⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
²³⁶ Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
²³⁷ Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
²³⁸ Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
²³⁹ Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
²⁴⁰ Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
²⁴¹ Fakultät für Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften, Fachgruppe Physik, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
²⁴² Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
²⁴³ Affiliated with an institute covered by a cooperation agreement with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
²⁴⁴ An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine
²⁴⁵ Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
²⁴⁶ Center for High Energy Physics, Peking University, China
²⁴⁷ Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation (CIRI-AUTH), Thessaloniki, Greece
²⁴⁸ Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi, Rome, Italy
²⁴⁹ CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
²⁵⁰ Département de Physique Nucléaire et Corpusculaire, Université de Genève, Geneve, Switzerland
²⁵¹ Departament de Fisica de la Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
²⁵² Department of Financial and Management Engineering, University of the Aegean, Chios, Greece
²⁵³ Department of Physics, California State University, Sacramento, USA
²⁵⁴ Department of Physics, King’s College London, London, UK
²⁵⁵ Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
²⁵⁶ Department of Physics, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
²⁵⁷ Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
²⁵⁸ Department of Physics, University of Thessaly, Greece
²⁵⁹ Department of Physics, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, USA
²⁶⁰ Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece
²⁶¹ Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, ICREA, Barcelona, Spain
²⁶² Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
²⁶³ Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy (INRNE) of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
²⁶⁴ Institute of Applied Physics, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Ben Guerir, Morocco
²⁶⁵ Institute of Particle Physics (IPP), Vancouver, Canada
²⁶⁶ Institute of Physics and Technology, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
²⁶⁷ Institute of Physics, Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, Baku, Azerbaijan
²⁶⁸ Institute of Theoretical Physics, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
²⁶⁹ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, USA
²⁷⁰ National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines Diliman (Philippines), Quezon City, Philippines
²⁷¹ Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
²⁷² The Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter (CICQM), Beijing, China
²⁷³ TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC, Canada
²⁷⁴ Università di Napoli Parthenope, Naples, Italy
²⁷⁵ University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Physics, Colorado, USA
²⁷⁶ Washington College, Chestertown, MD, USA
²⁷⁷ Yeditepe University, Physics Department, Istanbul, Turkey
²⁷⁸ CERN, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland

^a atlas.publications@cern.ch

Received: 6 March 2024
Accepted: 28 August 2024
Published online: 15 October 2024

Abstract

The observation of the electroweak production of a W boson and a photon in association with two jets, using pp collision data at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre of mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV, is reported. The data were recorded by the ATLAS experiment from 2015 to 2018 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb$_{}^{-1}$. This process is sensitive to the quartic gauge boson couplings via the vector boson scattering mechanism and provides a stringent test of the electroweak sector of the Standard Model. Events are selected if they contain one electron or muon, missing transverse momentum, at least one photon, and two jets. Multivariate techniques are used to distinguish the electroweak $W\gamma jj$ process from irreducible background processes. The observed significance of the electroweak $W\gamma jj$ process is well above six standard deviations, compared to an expected significance of 6.3 standard deviations. Fiducial and differential cross sections are measured in a fiducial phase space close to the detector acceptance, which are in reasonable agreement with leading order Standard Model predictions from MadGraph5+Pythia8 and Sherpa. The results are used to constrain new physics effects in the context of an effective field theory.