We analyze the potential of the CERN Large Hadron Collider to study anomalous quartic vector-boson interactions $\mathrm{ZZ}\gamma \gamma ,$ $\mathrm{ZZZ}\gamma ,$ $W^{+}{W}^{-}\gamma \gamma ,$ and $W^{+}{W}^{-}Z\gamma$ through the weak boson fusion processes $q\overrightarrow{q}\mathrm{qq}\gamma \gamma$ and $q\overrightarrow{q}\mathrm{qq}\gamma Z(\to {\mathcal{l}}^{+}{\mathcal{l}}^{-})$ with $\mathcal{l}=e$ or $\mu .$ After a careful study of the backgrounds and how to extract them from the data, we show that the process $p\overrightarrow{p}\mathrm{jj}\gamma {\mathcal{l}}^{+}{\mathcal{l}}^{-}$ is potentially the most sensitive to deviations from the standard model, improving the sensitivity to anomalous couplings by up to a factor of ${10}^4{(10\mathrm{}}^2)$ with respect to the present direct (indirect) limits.

• Received 12 December 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.69.095005