A measurement of total and fiducial inclusive W and Z boson production cross sections in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV is presented. Electron and muon final states are analyzed in a data sample collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 18.2 +/- 0.5 inverse-picobarns. The measured total inclusive cross sections times branching fractions are $\sigma(pp \to WX) \times B(W \to l\nu)$ = 12.21 +/- 0.03 (stat) +/- 0.24 (syst) +/- 0.32 (lum) nb, and $\sigma(pp \to ZX) \times B(Z \to l^{+}l^{-})$ = 1.15 +/- 0.01 (stat) +/- 0.02 (syst) +/- 0.03 (lum) nb, for the dilepton mass in the range of 60 to 120 GeV. The measured values agree with next-to-next-to-leading-order QCD cross section calculations. Ratios of cross sections are reported with a precision of 2%. This is the first measurement of inclusive W and Z boson production in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV.
CMS Collaboration, Basegmez, S., Beluffi, C., Bruno, G., Castello, R., Caudron, A., Ceard, L., Delaere, C., Du Pree, T., Favart, D., Forthomme, L., Giammanco, A., Hollar, J., Lemaitre, V., Liao, J., Militaru, O., Nuttens, C., Pagano, D., Pin, A., et al. (2014). Measurement of inclusive W and Z boson production cross sections in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. Physical Review Letters, 112, 191802. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.191802 (Original work published 2014)