Measurement of the ratio of the inclusive 3-jet cross section to the inclusive 2-jet cross section in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV and first determination of the strong coupling constant in the TeV range

A measurement is presented of the ratio of the inclusive 3-jet cross section to the inclusive 2-jet cross section as a function of the average transverse momentum, , of the two leading jets in the event. The data sample was collected during 2011 at a proton-proton centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 inverse femtobarns. The strong coupling constant at the scale of the Z boson mass is determined to be alphaS[MZ] = 0.1148 +/- 0.0014 (exp.) +/- 0.0018 (PDF) +/- 0.0050 (theory), by comparing the ratio in the range 0.42 < 1.39 TeV to the predictions of perturbative QCD at next-to-leading order. This is the first determination of alphaS[MZ] from measurements at momentum scales beyond 0.6 TeV. The predicted ratio depends only indirectly on the evolution of the parton distribution functions of the proton such that this measurement also serves as a test of the evolution of the strong coupling constant. No deviation from the expected behaviour is observed. arXiv HEPDATA CERN-LHC. Measurements of the ratios between inclusive 3-jet and 2-jet cross sections from proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The data sample, collected in 2011, has an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb-1. Data are presented as a function of the average transverse momentum of the two leading PT jets and is used for a determination of the strong coupling constant. Details of systematic errors and the statistical correlation matrix are given