Measurement of electroweak production of two jets in association with a Z boson in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)= 8 TeV

The purely electroweak (EW) cross section for the production of two jets in association with a Z boson, in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, is measured using data recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. The electroweak cross section for the lljj final state (with l = e or mu and j representing the quarks produced in the hard interaction) in the kinematic region defined by M[ll] > 50 GeV, M[jj] > 120 GeV, transverse momentum pt[j] > 25 GeV, and pseudorapidity abs(eta[j]) < 5, is found to be sigma[EW](lljj) = 174 +/- 15 (stat) +/- 40 (syst) fb, in agreement with the standard model prediction. The associated jet activity of the selected events is studied, in particular in a signal-enriched region of phase space, and the measurements are found to be in agreement with QCD predictions.