ATLAS collaboration (2853 authors)Aguilar Saavedra, Juan AntonioAmor Dos Santos, Susana PatriciaAnjos, NunoAraque, Juan PedroCarvalho, JoãoCastro, Nuno FilipeConde Muiño, PatriciaDa Cunha Sargedas De Sousa, Mario JoseFiolhais, MiguelGalhardo, BrunoGomes, AgostinhoGonçalo, RicardoJorge, PedroMachado Miguens, JoanaMaio, AméliaManeira, JoséOleiro Seabra, Luis FilipeOnofre, AntónioPedro, RuteSantos, HelenaSaraiva, JoãoSilva, JoséTavares Delgado, AdemarVeloso, FilipeWolters, Helmut2019-02-042019-02-042017-05-31http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-4900-zhttp://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/27293Measurements of the production cross section of a $Z$ boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$  TeV are presented, using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.16 fb$^{-1}$ collected by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2015. Inclusive and differential cross sections are measured for events containing a $Z$ boson decaying to electrons or muons and produced in association with up to seven jets with $p_{\text {T}} > 30$  GeV and $|y| <2.5$ . Predictions from different Monte Carlo generators based on leading-order and next-to-leading-order matrix elements for up to two additional partons interfaced with parton shower and fixed-order predictions at next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to-leading order are compared with the measured cross sections. Good agreement within the uncertainties is observed for most of the modelled quantities, in particular with the generators which use next-to-leading-order matrix elements and the more recent next-to-next-to-leading-order fixed-order predictions.engjournal article2019-02-04