Measurements of the Production Cross Section of a $Z$ Boson in Association with Jets in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

Measurements of the cross section for the production of a Z boson 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 boson decaying to electrons or muons and produced in association with up to seven jets in the jet kinematical range of transverse momentum $p_{\text{T}}$ > 30 GeV and rapidity $|y|$ < 2.5. Predictions from different Monte Carlo generators based on leading-order and next-to-leading-order matrix elements interfaced with parton shower and hadronisation models, and fixed-order predictions at next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to-leading order are compared to the observed cross sections. A reasonable agreement within the uncertainties is observed over most of the quantities, in particular with the generators which use next-to-leading matrix elements for up to two additional partons and the more recent next-to- next-to-leading order fixed-order predictions.