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.
The results of a search for charged Higgs bosons decaying to a $\tau$ lepton and a neutrino, $H^{\pm} \rightarrow \tau^{\pm} \nu$, are presented. The analysis is based on 19.5 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Charged Higgs bosons are searched for in events consistent with top-quark pair production or in associated production with a top quark. The final state is characterised by the presence of a hadronic $\tau$ decay, missing transverse momentum, $b$-tagged jets, a hadronically decaying $W$ boson, and the absence of any isolated electrons or muons with high transverse momenta. The data are consistent with the expected background from Standard Model processes. A statistical analysis leads to 95\% confidence-level upper limits on the product of branching ratios $ {\cal B}(t\rightarrow bH^\pm) \times {\cal B} (H^\pm\rightarrow \tau^{\pm}\nu) $, between 0.23% and 1.3% for charged Higgs boson masses in the range 80-160 GeV. It also leads to 95% confidence-level upper limits on the production cross section times branching ratio, $\sigma(pp \rightarrow tH^{\pm} + X) \times {\cal B}(H^{\pm} \rightarrow \tau^{\pm} \nu)$, between 0.76 pb and 4.5 fb, for charged Higgs boson masses ranging from 180 GeV to 1000 GeV. In the context of different scenarios of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, these results exclude nearly all values of $\tan\beta$ above one for charged Higgs boson masses between 80 GeV and 160 GeV, and exclude a region of parameter space with high $\tan\beta$ for $H^{\pm}$ masses between 200 GeV and 250 GeV.
Double-differential three-jet production cross-sections are measured in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are presented as a function of the three-jet mass $(m_{jjj})$, in bins of the sum of the absolute rapidity separations between the three leading jets $(|Y^\ast|)$. Invariant masses extending up to 5 TeV are reached for $8< |Y^\ast| < 10$. These measurements use a sample of data recorded using the ATLAS detector in 2011, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.51 fb$^{-1}$. Jets are identified using the anti-$k_t$ algorithm with two different jet radius parameters, R=0.4 and R=0.6. The dominant uncertainty in these measurements comes from the jet energy scale. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations corrected to account for non-perturbative effects are compared to the measurements. Good agreement is found between the data and the theoretical predictions based on most of the available sets of parton distribution functions, over the full kinematic range, covering almost seven orders of magnitude in the measured cross-section values.
Various differential cross-sections are measured in top-quark pair ($t\bar{t}$) events produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV at the LHC with the ATLAS detector. These differential cross-sections are presented in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $4.6$ fb$^{-1}$. The differential cross-sections are presented in terms of kinematic variables, such as momentum, rapidity and invariant mass, of a top-quark proxyreferred to as the pseudo-top-quark as well as the pseudo-top-quark pair system. The dependence of the measurement on theoretical models is minimal. The measurements are performed on $t\bar{t}$ events in the lepton+jets channel, requiring exactly one charged lepton and at least four jets with at least two of them tagged as originating from a $b$-quark. The hadronic and leptonic pseudo-top-quarks are defined via the leptonic or hadronic decay mode of the $W$ boson produced by the top-quark decay in events with a single charged lepton. Differential cross-section measurements of the pseudo-top-quark variables are compared with several Monte Carlo models that implement next-to-leading order or leading-order multi-leg matrix-element calculations.
Measurements of the centrality and rapidity dependence of inclusive jet production in $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV proton--lead ($p$+Pb) collisions and the jet cross-section in $\sqrt{s} = 2.76$ TeV proton--proton collisions are presented. These quantities are measured in datasets corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 27.8 nb$^{-1}$ and 4.0 pb$^{-1}$, respectively, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2013. The $p$+Pb collision centrality was characterised using the total transverse energy measured in the pseudorapidity interval $-4.9 < \eta < -3.2$ in the direction of the lead beam. Results are presented for the double-differential per-collision yields as a function of jet rapidity and transverse momentum ($p_\mathrm{T}$) for minimum-bias and centrality-selected $p$+Pb collisions, and are compared to the jet rate from the geometric expectation. The total jet yield in minimum-bias events is slightly enhanced above the expectation in a $p_\mathrm{T}$-dependent manner but is consistent with the expectation within uncertainties. The ratios of jet spectra from different centrality selections show a strong modification of jet production at all $p_\mathrm{T}$ at forward rapidities and for large $p_\mathrm{T}$ at mid-rapidity, which manifests as a suppression of the jet yield in central events and an enhancement in peripheral events. These effects imply that the factorisation between hard and soft processes is violated at an unexpected level in proton-nucleus collisions. Furthermore, the modifications at forward rapidities are found to be a function of the total jet energy only, implying that the violations may have a simple dependence on the hard parton-parton kinematics.
This article presents measurements of the $t$-channel single top-quark ($t$) and top-antiquark ($\bar{t}$) total production cross sections $\sigma(tq)$ and $\sigma(\bar{t}q)$, their ratio $R_{t}=\sigma(tq)/\sigma(\bar{t}q)$, and a measurement of the inclusive production cross section $\sigma(tq + \bar{t}q)$ in proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV at the LHC. Differential cross sections for the $tq$ and $\bar{t}q$ processes are measured as a function of the transverse momentum and the absolute value of the rapidity of $t$ and $\bar{t}$, respectively. The analyzed data set was recorded with the ATLAS detector and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.59 fb$^{-1}$. Selected events contain one charged lepton, large missing transverse momentum, and two or three jets. The cross sections are measured by performing a binned maximum-likelihood fit to the output distributions of neural networks. The resulting measurements are $\sigma(tq)= 46\pm 6\; \mathrm{pb}$, $\sigma(\bar{t}q)= 23 \pm 4\; \mathrm{pb}$, $R_{t}=2.04\pm 0.18$, and $\sigma(tq + \bar{t}q)= 68 \pm 8\; \mathrm{pb}$, consistent with the Standard Model expectation. The uncertainty on the measured cross sections is dominated by systematic uncertainties, while the uncertainty on $R_{t}$ is mainly statistical. Using the ratio of $\sigma(tq + \bar{t}q)$ to its theoretical prediction, and assuming that the top-quark-related CKM matrix elements obey the relation $|V_{tb}|\gg |V_{ts}|, |V_{td}|$, we determine $|V_{tb}|=1.02 \pm 0.07$.
The results of a search for top squark (stop) pair production in final states with one isolated lepton, jets, and missing transverse momentum are reported. The analysis is performed with proton--proton collision data at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2012 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $20$ fb$^{-1}$. The lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) is taken to be the lightest neutralino which only interacts weakly and is assumed to be stable. The stop decay modes considered are those to a top quark and the LSP as well as to a bottom quark and the lightest chargino, where the chargino decays to the LSP by emitting a $W$ boson. A wide range of scenarios with different mass splittings between the stop, the lightest neutralino and the lightest chargino are considered, including cases where the $W$ bosons or the top quarks are off-shell. Decay modes involving the heavier charginos and neutralinos are addressed using a set of phenomenological models of supersymmetry. No significant excess over the Standard Model prediction is observed. A stop with a mass between $210$ and $640$ GeV decaying directly to a top quark and a massless LSP is excluded at $95$ % confidence level, and in models where the mass of the lightest chargino is twice that of the LSP, stops are excluded at $95$ % confidence level up to a mass of $500$ GeV for an LSP mass in the range of $100$ to $150$ GeV. Stringent exclusion limits are also derived for all other stop decay modes considered, and model-independent upper limits are set on the visible cross-section for processes beyond the Standard Model.
The inclusive production cross sections at forward rapidity of J/$\psi$, $\psi$(2S), $\Upsilon$(1S) and $\Upsilon$(2S) are measured in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV with the ALICE detector at the LHC. The analysis is based in a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.35 pb$^{-1}$. Quarkonia are reconstructed in the dimuon-decay channel and the signal yields are evaluated by fitting the $\mu^+\mu^-$ invariant mass distributions. The differential production cross sections are measured as a function of the transverse momentum $p_{\rm T}$ and rapidity $y$, over the ranges $0 < p_{\rm T} < 20$ GeV/$c$ for J/$\psi$, $0 < p_{\rm T} < 12$ GeV/$c$ for all other resonances and for $2.5 < y < 4$. The measured cross sections integrated over $p_{\rm T}$ and $y$, and assuming unpolarized quarkonia, are: $\sigma_{J/\psi} = 6.69 \pm 0.04 \pm 0.63$ $\mu$b, $\sigma_{\psi^{\prime}} = 1.13 \pm 0.07 \pm 0.14$ $\mu$b, $\sigma_{\Upsilon{\rm(1S)}} = 54.2 \pm 5.0 \pm 6.7$ nb and $\sigma_{\Upsilon{\rm (2S)}} = 18.4 \pm 3.7 \pm 2.2$ nb, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second one is systematic. The results are compared to measurements performed by other LHC experiments and to theoretical models.
The production of $Z$ bosons with one or two isolated high-energy photons is studied using $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV. The analyses use a data sample with an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ collected by the ATLAS detector during the 2012 LHC data taking. The $Z\gamma$ and $Z\gamma\gamma$ production cross sections are measured with leptonic ($e^{+}e^{-}$, $\mu^{+}\mu^{-}$, $\nu\bar{\nu}$) decays of the $Z$ boson, in extended fiducial regions defined in terms of the lepton and photon acceptance. They are then compared to cross-section predictions from the Standard Model, where the sources of the photons are radiation off initial-state quarks and radiative $Z$-boson decay to charged leptons, and from fragmentation of final-state quarks and gluons into photons. The yields of events with photon transverse energy $E_T >$ 250 GeV from $\ell^{+}\ell^{-}\gamma$ events and with $E_T >$ 400 GeV from $\nu\bar{\nu}\gamma$ events are used to search for anomalous triple gauge-boson couplings $ZZ\gamma$ and $Z\gamma\gamma$. The yields of events with diphoton invariant mass $m_{\gamma\gamma} >$ 200 GeV from $\ell^{+}\ell^{-}\gamma\gamma$ events and with $m_{\gamma\gamma} > $ 300 GeV from $\nu\bar{\nu}\gamma\gamma$ events are used to search for anomalous quartic gauge-boson couplings $ZZ\gamma\gamma$ and $Z\gamma\gamma\gamma$. No deviations from Standard Model predictions are observed and limits are placed on parameters used to describe anomalous triple and quartic gauge-boson couplings.
A measurement of the cross section for the production of an isolated photon in association with jets in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV is presented. Photons are reconstructed in the pseudorapidity range $|\eta^{\gamma}| \lt 1.37$ and with a transverse energy $E_T^\gamma$ > 25 GeV. Jets are reconstructed in the rapidity range $|y^{jet}|$ < 4.4 and with a transverse momentum $p_T^{jet}$ > 20 GeV. The differential cross section $d\sigma/dE_T^\gamma$ is measured, as a function of the photon transverse energy, for three different rapidity ranges of the leading-$p_T$ jet: $|y^{jet}| < 1.2, 1.2 \le |y^{jet}|$ < 2.8 and 2.8 $\le |y^{jet}|$ < 4.4. For each rapidity configuration the same-sign $(\eta^{\gamma}y^{jet}\ge 0)$ and opposite-sign $(\eta^{\gamma}y^{jet}<0)$ cases are studied separately. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 37 pb$^{-1}$, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations are found to be in fair agreement with the data, except for $E_T^{\gamma} \lt 45$ GeV, where the theoretical predictions overestimate the measured cross sections.
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