  Cross sections for the production of a Z boson in association with jets in
proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 8 TeV are
measured using a data sample collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC
corresponding to 19.6 inverse femtobarns. Differential cross sections are
presented as functions of up to three observables that describe the jet
kinematics and the jet activity. Correlations between the azimuthal directions
and the rapidities of the jets and the Z boson are studied in detail. The
predictions of a number of multileg generators with leading or next-to-leading
order accuracy are compared with the measurements. The comparison shows the
importance of including multi-parton contributions in the matrix elements and
the improvement in the predictions when next-to-leading order terms are
included.
