Several extensions of the Standard Model predict the production of dark matter particles at the LHC. An uncharted signature of dark matter particles produced in association with $VV=W^\pm W^\mp$ or $ZZ$ pairs from a decay of a dark Higgs boson $s$ is searched for using 139 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The $s\to V(q\bar q)V(q\bar q)$ decays are reconstructed with a novel technique aimed at resolving the dense topology from boosted $VV$ pairs using jets in the calorimeter and tracking information. Dark Higgs scenarios with $m_s > 160$ GeV are excluded.
Inclusive and differential fiducial cross sections of Higgs boson production in proton-proton collisions are measured in the $H \rightarrow ZZ^* \rightarrow 4\ell$ decay channel. The proton-proton collision data were produced at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector in 2015 and 2016, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb$^{-1}$. The inclusive fiducial cross section in the $H \rightarrow ZZ^* \rightarrow 4\ell$ decay channel is measured to be 3.62 $\pm$ 0.50 (stat) $^{+0.25}_{-0.20}$ (sys) fb, in agreement with the Standard Model prediction of 2.91 $\pm$ 0.13 fb. The cross section is also extrapolated to the total phase space including all Standard Model Higgs boson decays. Several differential fiducial cross sections are measured for observables sensitive to the Higgs boson production and decay, including kinematic distributions of jets produced in association with the Higgs boson. Good agreement is found between data and Standard Model predictions. The results are used to put constraints on anomalous Higgs boson interactions with Standard Model particles, using the pseudo-observable extension to the kappa-framework.
The inclusive and fiducial $t\bar{t}$ production cross-sections are measured in the lepton+jets channel using 20.2 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Major systematic uncertainties due to the modelling of the jet energy scale and $b$-tagging efficiency are constrained by separating selected events into three disjoint regions. In order to reduce systematic uncertainties in the most important background, the W+jets process is modelled using Z+jets events in a data-driven approach. The inclusive $t\bar{t}$ cross-section is measured with a precision of 5.7% to be $\sigma_{\text{inc}}(t\bar{t})$ = 248.3 $\pm$ 0.7 (stat.) $\pm$ 13.4 (syst.) $\pm$ 4.7 (lumi.) pb, assuming a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV. The result is in agreement with the Standard Model prediction. The cross-section is also measured in a phase space close to that of the selected data. The fiducial cross-section is $\sigma_{\text{fid}}(t\bar{t})$ = 48.8 $\pm$ 0.1 (stat.) $\pm$ 2.0 (syst.) $\pm$ 0.9 (lumi.) pb with a precision of 4.5%.
A search for heavy neutral Higgs bosons and $Z^{\prime}$ bosons is performed using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb$^{-1}$ from proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2015 and 2016. The heavy resonance is assumed to decay to $\tau^+\tau^-$ with at least one tau lepton decaying to final states with hadrons and a neutrino. The search is performed in the mass range of 0.2-2.25 TeV for Higgs bosons and 0.2-4.0 TeV for $Z^{\prime}$ bosons. The data are in good agreement with the background predicted by the Standard Model. The results are interpreted in benchmark scenarios. In the context of the hMSSM scenario, the data exclude $\tan\beta > 1.0$ for $m_A$ = 0.25 TeV and $\tan\beta > 42$ for $m_A$ = 1.5 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the Sequential Standard Model, $Z^{\prime}_\mathrm{SSM}$ with $m_{Z^{\prime}} < 2.42$ TeV is excluded at 95% confidence level, while $Z^{\prime}_\mathrm{NU}$ with $m_{Z^{\prime}} < 2.25$ TeV is excluded for the non-universal $G(221)$ model that exhibits enhanced couplings to third-generation fermions.
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