This paper presents a search for massive charged long-lived particles produced in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV at the LHC using the ATLAS experiment. The dataset used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb$^{-1}$. Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of massive charged long-lived particles, such as $R$-hadrons. These massive particles are expected to be produced with a velocity significantly below the speed of light, and therefore to have a specific ionization higher than any Standard Model particle of unit charge at high momenta. The Pixel subsystem of the ATLAS detector is used to measure the ionization energy loss of reconstructed charged particles and to search for such highly ionizing particles. The search presented here has much greater sensitivity than a similar search performed using the ATLAS detector in the $\sqrt{s}=$ 8 TeV dataset, thanks to the increase in expected signal cross-section due to the higher center-of-mass energy of collisions, to an upgraded detector with a new silicon layer close to the interaction point, and to analysis improvements. No significant deviation from Standard Model background expectations is observed, and lifetime-dependent upper limits on $R$-hadron production cross-sections and masses are set. Gluino $R$-hadrons with lifetimes above 0.4 ns and decaying to $q\bar{q}$ plus a 100 GeV neutralino are excluded at the 95% confidence level, with lower mass limit ranging between 740 GeV and 1590 GeV. In the case of stable $R$-hadrons the lower mass limit at the 95% confidence level is 1570 GeV.
The fragmentation properties of jets containing $b$-hadrons are studied using charged $B$ mesons in 139 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during the period from 2015 to 2018. The $B$ mesons are reconstructed using the decay of $B^{\pm}$ into $J/\psi K^{\pm}$, with the $J/\psi$ decaying into a pair of muons. Jets are reconstructed using the anti-$k_t$ algorithm with radius parameter $R=0.4$. The measurement determines the longitudinal and transverse momentum profiles of the reconstructed $B$ hadrons with respect to the axes of the jets to which they are geometrically associated. These distributions are measured in intervals of the jet transverse momentum, ranging from 50 GeV to above 100 GeV. The results are corrected for detector effects and compared with several Monte Carlo predictions using different parton shower and hadronisation models. The results for the longitudinal and transverse profiles provide useful inputs to improve the description of heavy-flavour fragmentation in jets.
Measurements of transverse energy-energy correlations and their associated asymmetries in multi-jet events using the ATLAS detector at the LHC are presented. The data used correspond to $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV proton-proton collisions with an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb$^{-1}$. The results are presented in bins of the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of the two leading jets, unfolded to the particle level and compared to the predictions from Monte Carlo simulations. A comparison with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD is also performed, showing excellent agreement within the uncertainties. From this comparison, the value of the strong coupling constant is extracted for different energy regimes, thus testing the running of $\alpha_s(\mu)$ predicted in QCD up to scales over 1 TeV. A global fit to the transverse energy-energy correlation distributions yields $\alpha_s(m_Z) = 0.1162 \pm 0.0011 \mbox{ (exp.)}^{+0.0084}_{-0.0070} \mbox{ (theo.)}$, while a global fit to the asymmetry distributions yields a value of $\alpha_s(m_Z) = 0.1196 \pm 0.0013 \mbox{ (exp.)}^{+0.0075}_{-0.0045} \mbox{ (theo.)}$.
The momentum-weighted sum of the charges of tracks associated to a jet is sensitive to the charge of the initiating quark or gluon. This paper presents a measurement of the distribution of momentum-weighted sums, called jet charge, in dijet events using 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of data recorded with the ATLAS detector at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV in $pp$ collisions at the LHC. The jet charge distribution is unfolded to remove distortions from detector effects and the resulting particle-level distribution is compared with several models. The $p_T$-dependence of the jet charge distribution average and standard deviation are compared to predictions obtained with several LO and NLO parton distribution functions. The data are also compared to different Monte Carlo simulations of QCD dijet production using various settings of the free parameters within these models. The chosen value of the strong coupling constant used to calculate gluon radiation is found to have a significant impact on the predicted jet charge. There is evidence for a $p_{T}$-dependence of the jet charge distribution for a given jet flavor. In agreement with perturbative QCD predictions, the data show that the average jet charge of quark-initiated jets decreases in magnitude as the energy of the jet increases.
This paper presents measurements of distributions of charged particles which are produced in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. A special dataset recorded in 2012 with a small number of interactions per beam crossing (below 0.004) and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $160 \mathrm{\mu b^{-1}}$ was used. A minimum-bias trigger was utilised to select a data sample of more than 9 million collision events. The multiplicity, pseudorapidity, and transverse momentum distributions of charged particles are shown in different regions of kinematics and charged-particle multiplicity, including measurements of final states at high multiplicity. The results are corrected for detector effects and are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generator models which simulate the full hadronic final state.
This paper presents a measurement of the polarisation of $\tau$ leptons produced in $Z/\gamma^{*}\rightarrow\tau\tau$ decays which is performed with a dataset of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb$^{-1}$ recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2012. The $Z/\gamma^{*}\rightarrow\tau\tau$ decays are reconstructed from a hadronically decaying $\tau$ lepton with a single charged particle in the final state, accompanied by a $\tau$ lepton that decays leptonically. The $\tau$ polarisation is inferred from the relative fraction of energy carried by charged and neutral hadrons in the hadronic $\tau$ decays. The polarisation is measured in a fiducial region that corresponds to the kinematic region accessible to this analysis. The $\tau$ polarisation extracted over the full phase space within the $Z/\gamma^{*}$ mass range of 66$ < m_{Z/\gamma^{*}} < $ 116 GeV is found to be $P_{\tau} =-0.14 \pm 0.02 (\text{stat}) \pm 0.04 (\text{syst})$. It is in agreement with the Standard Model prediction of $P_{\tau} =-0.1517 \pm 0.0019$, which is obtained from the ALPGEN event generator interfaced with the PYTHIA 6 parton shower modelling and the TAUOLA $\tau$ decay library.
A direct search for Higgs bosons produced via vector-boson fusion and subsequently decaying into invisible particles is reported. The analysis uses 139 $\text{fb}^{-1}$ of $pp$ collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$=13 $\text{TeV}$ recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The observed numbers of events are found to be in agreement with the background expectation from Standard Model processes. For a scalar Higgs boson with a mass of 125 $\text{GeV}$ and a Standard Model production cross section, an observed upper limit of $0.145$ is placed on the branching fraction of its decay into invisible particles at 95% confidence level, with an expected limit of $0.103$. These results are interpreted in the context of models where the Higgs boson acts as a portal to dark matter, and limits are set on the scattering cross section of weakly interacting massive particles and nucleons. Invisible decays of additional scalar bosons with masses from 50 $\text{GeV}$ to 2 $\text{TeV}$ are also studied, and the derived upper limits on the cross section times branching fraction decrease with increasing mass from 1.0 $\text{pb}$ for a scalar boson mass of 50 $\text{GeV}$ to 0.1 $\text{pb}$ at a mass of 2 $\text{TeV}$.
This search, a type not previously performed at ATLAS, uses a comparison of the production cross sections for $e^+ \mu^-$ and $e^- \mu^+$ pairs to constrain physics processes beyond the Standard Model. It uses $139 \text{fb}^{-1}$ of proton$-$proton collision data recorded at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV at the LHC. Targeting sources of new physics which prefer final states containing $e^{+}\mu^{-}$ to $e^{-}\mu^{+}$, the search contains two broad signal regions which are used to provide model-independent constraints on the ratio of cross sections at the 2% level. The search also has two special selections targeting supersymmetric models and leptoquark signatures. Observations using one of these selections are able to exclude, at 95% confidence level, singly produced smuons with masses up to 640 GeV in a model in which the only other light sparticle is a neutralino when the $R$-parity-violating coupling $\lambda'_{231}$ is close to unity. Observations using the other selection exclude scalar leptoquarks with masses below 1880 GeV when $g_{\text{1R}}^{eu}=g_{\text{1R}}^{\mu c}=1$, at 95% confidence level. The limit on the coupling reduces to $g_{\text{1R}}^{eu}=g_{\text{1R}}^{\mu c}=0.46$ for a mass of 1420 GeV.
This article reports on a search for dark matter pair production in association with bottom or top quarks in 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions collected at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events with large missing transverse momentum are selected when produced in association with high-momentum jets of which one or more are identified as jets containing $b$-quarks. Final states with top quarks are selected by requiring a high jet multiplicity and in some cases a single lepton. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectations and limits are set on the mass scale of effective field theories that describe scalar and tensor interactions between dark matter and Standard Model particles. Limits on the dark-matter--nucleon cross-section for spin-independent and spin-dependent interactions are also provided. These limits are particularly strong for low-mass dark matter. Using a simplified model, constraints are set on the mass of dark matter and of a coloured mediator suitable to explain a possible signal of annihilating dark matter.
The differential cross-section for pair production of top quarks with high transverse momentum is measured in 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The measurement is performed for $t\bar{t}$ events in the lepton+jets channel. The cross-section is reported as a function of the hadronically decaying top quark transverse momentum for values above 300 GeV. The hadronically decaying top quark is reconstructed as an anti-$k_t$ jet with radius parameter $R=1.0$ and identified with jet substructure techniques. The observed yield is corrected for detector effects to obtain a cross-section at particle level in a fiducial region close to the event selection. A parton-level cross-section extrapolated to the full phase space is also reported for top quarks with transverse momentum above 300 GeV. The predictions of a majority of next-to-leading-order and leading-order matrix-element Monte Carlo generators are found to agree with the measured cross-sections.
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