Single- and double-differential cross-section measurements are presented for the production of top-quark pairs, in the lepton + jets channel at particle and parton level. Two topologies, resolved and boosted, are considered and the results are presented as a function of several kinematic variables characterising the top and $t\bar{t}$ system and jet multiplicities. The study was performed using data from $pp$ collisions at centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected in 2015 and 2016 by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $36~\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$. Due to the large $t\bar{t}$ cross-section at the LHC, such measurements allow a detailed study of the properties of top-quark production and decay, enabling precision tests of several Monte Carlo generators and fixed-order Standard Model predictions. Overall, there is good agreement between the theoretical predictions and the data.
Inclusive and differential cross-sections for the production of a top-quark pair in association with a photon are measured with proton-proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb$^{-1}$, collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015 and 2016 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The measurements are performed in single-lepton and dilepton final states in a fiducial volume. Events with exactly one photon, one or two leptons, a channel-dependent minimum number of jets, and at least one $b$-jet are selected. Neural network algorithms are used to separate the signal from the backgrounds. The fiducial cross-sections are measured to be 521 $\pm$ 9(stat.) $\pm$ 41(sys.) fb and 69 $\pm$ 3(stat.) $\pm$ 4(sys.) fb for the single-lepton and dilepton channels, respectively. The differential cross-sections are measured as a function of photon transverse momentum, photon absolute pseudorapidity, and angular distance between the photon and its closest lepton in both channels, as well as azimuthal opening angle and absolute pseudorapidity difference between the two leptons in the dilepton channel. All measurements are in agreement with the theoretical predictions.
A measurement of jet substructure variables is presented using data collected in 2016 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC with proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. Large-radius jets groomed with the trimming and soft-drop algorithms are studied. Dedicated event selections are used to study jets produced by light quarks or gluons, and hadronically decaying top quarks and $W$ bosons. The variables measured are sensitive to pronged substructure, and therefore are typically used for tagging jets from boosted massive particles. These include the energy correlation functions and the $N$-subjettiness variables. The number of subjets and the Les Houches angularity are also considered. The distributions of the substructure variables, corrected for detector effects, are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generators. They are also compared between the large-radius jets originating from light quarks or gluons, and hadronically decaying top quarks and $W$ bosons.
A search for high-mass dielectron and dimuon resonances in the mass range of 250 GeV to 6 TeV is presented. The data were recorded by the ATLAS experiment in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=$13 TeV during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. A functional form is fitted to the dilepton invariant-mass distribution to model the contribution from background processes, and a generic signal shape is used to determine the significance of observed deviations from this background estimate. No significant deviation is observed and upper limits are placed at the 95% confidence level on the fiducial cross-section times branching ratio for various resonance width hypotheses. The derived limits are shown to be applicable to spin-0, spin-1 and spin-2 signal hypotheses. For a set of benchmark models, the limits are converted into lower limits on the resonance mass and reach 4.5 TeV for the E6-motivated $Z^\prime_\psi$ boson. Also presented are limits on Heavy Vector Triplet model couplings.
A dedicated sample of Large Hadron Collider proton-proton collision data at centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV is used to study inclusive single diffractive dissociation, $pp \rightarrow Xp$. The intact final-state proton is reconstructed in the ATLAS ALFA forward spectrometer, while charged particles from the dissociated system $X$ are measured in the central detector components. The fiducial range of the measurement is $-4.0 < \log_{10} \xi < -1.6$ and $0.016 < |t| < 0.43 \ {\rm GeV^2}$, where $\xi$ is the proton fractional energy loss and $t$ is the squared four-momentum transfer. The total cross section integrated across the fiducial range is $1.59 \pm 0.13 \ {\rm mb}$. Cross sections are also measured differentially as functions of $\xi$, $t$, and $\Delta \eta$, a variable that characterises the rapidity gap separating the proton and the system $X$. The data are consistent with an exponential $t$ dependence, ${\rm d} \sigma / {\rm d} t \propto \text{e}^{Bt}$ with slope parameter $B = 7.65 \pm 0.34 \ {\rm GeV^{-2}}$. Interpreted in the framework of triple Regge phenomenology, the $\xi$ dependence leads to a pomeron intercept of $\alpha(0) = 1.07 \pm 0.09$.
The production of a prompt photon in association with a $Z$ boson is studied in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV. The analysis uses a data sample with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$ collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC from 2015 to 2018. The production cross-section for the process $pp \rightarrow \ell^+\ell^-\gamma+X$ ($\ell = e, \mu$) is measured within a fiducial phase-space region defined by kinematic requirements on the photon and the leptons, and by isolation requirements on the photon. An experimental precision of 2.9% is achieved for the fiducial cross-section. Differential cross-sections are measured as a function of each of six kinematic variables characterising the $\ell^+\ell^-\gamma$ system. The data are compared with theoretical predictions based on next-to-leading-order and next-to-next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations. The impact of next-to-leading-order electroweak corrections is also considered.
The prevalence of hadronic jets at the LHC requires that a deep understanding of jet formation and structure is achieved in order to reach the highest levels of experimental and theoretical precision. There have been many measurements of jet substructure at the LHC and previous colliders, but the targeted observables mix physical effects from various origins. Based on a recent proposal to factorize physical effects, this Letter presents a double-differential cross-section measurement of the Lund jet plane using 139 fb$^{-1}$ of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV proton-proton collision data collected with the ATLAS detector using jets with transverse momentum above 675 GeV. The measurement uses charged particles to achieve a fine angular resolution and is corrected for acceptance and detector effects. Several parton shower Monte Carlo models are compared with the data. No single model is found to be in agreement with the measured data across the entire plane.
The inclusive top quark pair ($t\bar{t}$) production cross-section $\sigma_{t\bar{t}}$ has been measured in proton$-$proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV, using $36.1$ fb$^{-1}$ of data collected in 2015$-$16 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Using events with an opposite-charge $e\mu$ pair and $b$-tagged jets, the cross-section is measured to be: \begin{equation}\nonumber \sigma_{t\bar{t}} = 826.4 \pm 3.6\,\mathrm{(stat)}\ \pm 11.5\,\mathrm{(syst)}\ \pm 15.7\,\mathrm{(lumi)}\ \pm 1.9\,\mathrm{(beam)}\,\mathrm{pb}, \end{equation} where the uncertainties reflect the limited size of the data sample, experimental and theoretical systematic effects, the integrated luminosity, and the LHC beam energy, giving a total uncertainty of 2.4%. The result is consistent with theoretical QCD calculations at next-to-next-to-leading order. It is used to determine the top quark pole mass via the dependence of the predicted cross-section on $m_t^{\mathrm{pole}}$, giving $m_t^{\mathrm{pole}}=173.1^{+2.0}_{-2.1}$ GeV. It is also combined with measurements at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV and $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV to derive ratios and double ratios of $t\bar{t}$ and $Z$ cross-sections at different energies. The same event sample is used to measure absolute and normalised differential cross-sections as functions of single-lepton and dilepton kinematic variables, and the results compared with predictions from various Monte Carlo event generators.
The fragmentation of high-energy gluons at small opening angles is largely unconstrained by present measurements. Gluon splitting to $b$-quark pairs is a unique probe into the properties of gluon fragmentation because identified $b$-tagged jets provide a proxy for the quark daughters of the initial gluon. In this study, key differential distributions related to the $g\rightarrow b\bar{b}$ process are measured using 33 fb$^{-1}$ of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV $pp$ collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2016. Jets constructed from charged-particle tracks, clustered with the anti-$k_t$ jet algorithm with radius parameter $R = 0.2$, are used to probe angular scales below the $R=0.4$ jet radius. The observables are unfolded to particle level in order to facilitate direct comparisons with predictions from present and future simulations. Multiple significant differences are observed between the data and parton shower Monte Carlo predictions, providing input to improve these predictions of the main source of background events in analyses involving boosted Higgs bosons decaying into $b$-quarks.
The inclusive cross-section for jet production in association with a Z boson decaying into an electron-positron pair is measured as a function of the transverse momentum and the absolute rapidity of jets using 19.9 fb$^{-1}$ of $\sqrt s = 8$ TeV proton-proton collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measured Z + jets cross-section is unfolded to the particle level. The cross-section is compared with state-of-the-art Standard Model calculations, including the next-to-leading-order and next-to-next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations, corrected for non-perturbative and QED radiation effects. The results of the measurements cover final-state jets with transverse momenta up to 1 TeV, and show good agreement with fixed-order calculations.