A search is presented for flavour-changing neutral-current interactions involving the top quark, the Higgs boson and an up-type quark ($q=u,c$) with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis considers leptonic decays of the top quark along with Higgs boson decays into two $W$ bosons, two $Z$ bosons or a $\tau^{+}\tau^{-}$ pair. It focuses on final states containing either two leptons (electrons or muons) of the same charge or three leptons. The considered processes are $t\bar{t}$ and $Ht$ production. For the $t\bar{t}$ production, one top quark decays via $t\to Hq$. The proton-proton collision data set analysed amounts to 140 fb$^{-1}$ at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. No significant excess beyond Standard Model expectations is observed and upper limits are set on the $t\to Hq$ branching ratios at 95% confidence level, amounting to observed (expected) limits of $\mathcal{B}(t\to Hu)<2.8\,(3.0) \times 10^{-4}$ and $\mathcal{B}(t\to Hc)<3.3\,(3.8) \times 10^{-4}$. Combining this search with other searches for $tHq$ flavour-changing neutral-current interactions previously conducted by ATLAS, considering $H\to b\bar{b}$ and $H\to\gamma\gamma$ decays, as well as $H\to\tau^{+}\tau^{-}$ decays with one or two hadronically decaying $\tau$-leptons, yields observed (expected) upper limits on the branching ratios of $\mathcal{B}(t\to Hu)<2.6\,(1.8) \times 10^{-4}$ and $\mathcal{B}(t\to Hc)<3.4\,(2.3) \times 10^{-4}$.

Measurements of fiducial cross sections for the electroweak production of two jets in association with a Z-boson are presented. The measurements are performed using 20.3 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s)=8 TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The electroweak component is extracted by a fit to the dijet invariant mass distribution in a fiducial region chosen to enhance the electroweak contribution over the dominant background in which the jets are produced via the strong interaction. The electroweak cross sections measured in two fiducial regions are in good agreement with the Standard Model expectations and the background-only hypothesis is rejected with significance above the 5 sigma level. The electroweak process includes the vector boson fusion production of a Z-boson and the data are used to place limits on anomalous triple gauge boson couplings. In addition, measurements of cross sections and differential distributions for inclusive Z-boson-plus-dijet production are performed in five fiducial regions, each with different sensitivity to the electroweak contribution. The results are corrected for detector effects and compared to predictions from the SHERPA and POWHEG event generators.

High transverse momentum jets produced in pp collisions at a centre of mass energy of 7 TeV are used to measure the transverse energy-energy correlation function and its associated azimuthal asymmetry. The data were recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in the year 2011 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 158 $\mathrm{pb}^{-1}$. The selection criteria demand the average transverse momentum of the two leading jets in an event to be larger than 250 GeV. The data at detector level are well described by Monte Carlo event generators. They are unfolded to the particle level and compared with theoretical calculations at next-to-leading-order accuracy. The agreement between data and theory is good and provides a precision test of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics at large momentum transfers. From this comparison, the strong coupling constant given at the $Z$ boson mass is determined to be $\alpha_{\mathrm{s}}(m_Z) = 0.1173 \pm 0.0010 \mbox{ (exp.) }^{+0.0065}_{-0.0026} \mbox{ (theo.)}$.

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.

This paper presents the measurement of fiducial and differential cross sections for both the inclusive and electroweak production of a same-sign $W$-boson pair in association with two jets ($W^\pm W^\pm jj$) using 139 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is performed by selecting two same-charge leptons, electron or muon, and at least two jets with large invariant mass and a large rapidity difference. The measured fiducial cross sections for electroweak and inclusive $W^\pm W^\pm jj$ production are $2.92 \pm 0.22\, \text{(stat.)} \pm 0.19\, \text{(syst.)}$ fb and $3.38 \pm 0.22\, \text{(stat.)} \pm 0.19\, \text{(syst.)}$ fb, respectively, in agreement with Standard Model predictions. The measurements are used to constrain anomalous quartic gauge couplings by extracting 95% confidence level intervals on dimension-8 operators. A search for doubly charged Higgs bosons $H^{\pm\pm}$ that are produced in vector-boson fusion processes and decay into a same-sign $W$ boson pair is performed. The largest deviation from the Standard Model occurs for an $H^{\pm\pm}$ mass near 450 GeV, with a global significance of 2.5 standard deviations.

This paper presents a search for pair production of higgsinos, the supersymmetric partners of the Higgs bosons, in scenarios with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. Each higgsino is assumed to decay into a Higgs boson and a nearly massless gravitino. The search targets events where each Higgs boson decays into $b\bar{b}$, leading to a reconstructed final state with at least three energetic $b$-jets and missing transverse momentum. Two complementary analysis channels are used, with each channel specifically targeting either low or high values of the higgsino mass. The low-mass (high-mass) channel exploits 126 (139) fb$^{-1}$ of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV data collected by the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess above the Standard Model prediction is found. At 95% confidence level, masses between 130 GeV and 940 GeV are excluded for higgsinos decaying exclusively into Higgs bosons and gravitinos. Exclusion limits as a function of the higgsino decay branching ratio to a Higgs boson are also reported.

This paper presents measurements of $t\bar{t}$ production in association with additional $b$-jets in $pp$ collisions at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The data were recorded with the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb$^{-1}$. Fiducial cross-section measurements are performed in the dilepton and lepton-plus-jets $t\bar{t}$ decay channels. Results are presented at particle level in the form of inclusive cross-sections of $t\bar{t}$ final states with three and four $b$-jets as well as differential cross-sections as a function of global event properties and properties of $b$-jet pairs. The measured inclusive fiducial cross-sections generally exceed the $t\bar{t}b\bar{b}$ predictions from various next-to-leading-order matrix element calculations matched to a parton shower but are compatible within the total uncertainties. The experimental uncertainties are smaller than the uncertainties in the predictions. Comparisons of state-of-the-art theoretical predictions with the differential measurements are shown and good agreement with data is found for most of them.

A search for supersymmetry involving the pair production of gluinos decaying via off-shell third-generation squarks into the lightest neutralino ($\tilde\chi^0_1$) is reported. It exploits LHC proton$-$proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$ collected with the ATLAS detector from 2015 to 2018. The search uses events containing large missing transverse momentum, up to one electron or muon, and several energetic jets, at least three of which must be identified as containing $b$-hadrons. Both a simple kinematic event selection and an event selection based upon a deep neural-network are used. No significant excess above the predicted background is found. In simplified models involving the pair production of gluinos that decay via off-shell top (bottom) squarks, gluino masses less than 2.44 TeV (2.35 TeV) are excluded at 95% CL for a massless $\tilde\chi^0_1$. Limits are also set on the gluino mass in models with variable branching ratios for gluino decays to $b\bar{b}\tilde\chi^0_1$, $t\bar{t}\tilde\chi^0_1$ and $t\bar{b}\tilde\chi^-_1$ / $\bar{t}b\tilde\chi^+_1$.

The first measurement of e$^+$e$^-$ pair production at mid-rapidity ($|\eta_{{\rm e}}|$ $<$ 0.8) in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV with ALICE at the LHC is presented. The dielectron production is studied as a function of the invariant mass ($m_{\rm ee}$ $<$ 3.3 GeV/$c^{2}$), the pair transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T,ee}$ $<$ 8 GeV/$c$), and the pair transverse impact parameter (DCA$_{{\rm ee}}$), i.e., the average distance of closest approach of the reconstructed electron and positron tracks to the collision vertex, normalised to its resolution. The results are compared with the expectations from a cocktail of known hadronic sources and are well described when PYTHIA is used to generate the heavy-flavour contributions. In the low-mass region (0.14 $<$ $m_{\rm ee}$ $<$ 1.1 GeV/$c^{2}$), prompt and non-prompt e$^+$e$^-$ sources can be separated via the DCA$_{\rm ee}$. In the intermediate-mass region (1.1 $<$ $m_{\rm ee}$ $<$ 2.7 GeV/$c^{2}$), a double-differential fit to the data in $m_{\rm ee}$ and $p_{\rm T,ee}$ and a fit of the DCA$_{\rm ee}$ distribution allow the total ${\rm c\overline c}$ and ${\rm b\overline b}$ cross sections to be extracted. Two different event generators, PYTHIA and POWHEG, can reproduce the shape of the two-dimensional $m_{\rm ee}$ and $p_{\rm T,ee}$ spectra, as well as the shape of the DCA$_{\rm ee}$ distribution, reasonably well. However, differences in the ${\rm c\overline c}$ and ${\rm b\overline b}$ cross sections are observed when using the generators to extrapolate to full phase space. Finally, the ratio of inclusive to decay photons is studied via the measurement of virtual direct photons in the transverse-momentum range 1 $<$ $p_{\rm T}$ $<$ 8 GeV/$c$. This is found to be unity within the statistical and systematic uncertainties and consistent with expectations from next-to-leading order perturbative quantum chromodynamic calculations.

This article reports measurements characterizing the Underlying Event (UE) associated with hard scatterings at midrapidity in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. The hard scatterings are identified by the leading particle, the charged particle with the highest transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}^{\rm leading}$) in the event. Charged-particle number and summed transverse-momentum densities are measured in different azimuthal regions defined with respect to the leading particle direction: Toward, Transverse, and Away. The Toward and Away regions contain the fragmentation products of the hard scatterings in addition to the UE contribution, whereas particles in the Transverse region are expected to originate predominantly from the UE. The study is performed as a function of $p_{\rm T}^{\rm leading}$ with three different $p_{\rm T}$ thresholds for the associated particles, $p_{\rm T}^{\rm min} >$ 0.15, 0.5, and 1.0 GeV/$c$. The charged-particle density in the Transverse region rises steeply for low values of $p_{\rm T}^{\rm leading}$ and reaches a plateau. The results confirm the trend that the charged-particle density in the Transverse region shows a stronger increase with $\sqrt{s}$ than the inclusive charged-particle density at midrapidity. The UE activity is increased by approximately 20% when going from 7 to 13 TeV. The plateau in the Transverse region ($5 < p_{\rm T}^{\rm leading} < ~ 40$ GeV/$c$ ) is further characterized by the probability distribution of its charged-particle multiplicity normalized to its average value (relative transverse activity, $R_{T}$) and the mean transverse momentum as a function of $R_{T}$. Experimental results are compared to model calculations using PYTHIA 8 and EPOS LHC. The overall agreement between models and data is within 30%. These measurements provide new insights on the interplay between hard scatterings and the associated UE in pp collisions.