This paper reviews and extends searches for the direct pair production of the scalar supersymmetric partners of the top and bottom quarks in proton-proton collisions collected by the ATLAS collaboration during the LHC Run 1. Most of the analyses use 20 fb$^{-1}$ of collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV, although in some case an additional 4.7 fb$^{-1}$ of collision data at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV are used. New analyses are introduced to improve the sensitivity to specific regions of the model parameter space. Since no evidence of third-generation squarks is found, exclusion limits are derived by combining several analyses and are presented in both a simplified model framework, assuming simple decay chains, as well as within the context of more elaborate phenomenological supersymmetric models.

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.

Measurements of distributions of charged particles produced in proton-proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV are presented. The data were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 151 $\mu$b$^{-1}$. The particles are required to have a transverse momentum greater than 100 MeV and an absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.5. The charged-particle multiplicity, its dependence on transverse momentum and pseudorapidity and the dependence of the mean transverse momentum on multiplicity are measured in events containing at least two charged particles satisfying the above kinematic criteria. The results are corrected for detector effects and compared to the predictions from several Monte Carlo event generators.

Charged-particle distributions are measured in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, using a data sample of nearly 9 million events, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 170 $\mu$b$^{-1}$, recorded by the ATLAS detector during a special Large Hadron Collider fill. The charged-particle multiplicity, its dependence on transverse momentum and pseudorapidity and the dependence of the mean transverse momentum on the charged-particle multiplicity are presented. The measurements are performed with charged particles with transverse momentum greater than 500 MeV and absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.5, in events with at least one charged particle satisfying these kinematic requirements. Additional measurements in a reduced phase space with absolute pseudorapidity less than 0.8 are also presented, in order to compare with other experiments. The results are corrected for detector effects, presented as particle-level distributions and are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generators.

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 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 splitting processes in identified quark and gluon jets are investigated using longitudinal and transverse observables. The jets are selected from symmetric three-jet events measured in Z decays with the Delphi detector in 1991-1994. Gluon jets are identified using heavy quark anti-tagging. Scaling violations in identified gluon jets are observed for the first time. The scale energy dependence of the gluon fragmentation function is found to be about two times larger than for the corresponding quark jets, consistent with the QCD expectation CA/CF. The primary splitting of gluons and quarks into subjets agrees with fragmentation models and, for specific regions of the jet resolution y, with NLLA calculations. The maximum of the ratio of the primary subjet splittings in quark and gluon jets is 2.77±0.11±0.10. Due to non-perturbative effects, the data are below the expectation at small y. The transition from the perturbative to the non-perturbative domain appears at smaller y for quark jets than for gluon jets. Combined with the observed behaviour of the higher rank splittings, this explains the relatively small multiplicity ratio between gluon and quark jets.

Recent studies have highlighted the potential of jet substructure techniques to identify the hadronic decays of boosted heavy particles. These studies all rely upon the assumption that the internal substructure of jets generated by QCD radiation is well understood. In this article, this assumption is tested on an inclusive sample of jets recorded with the ATLAS detector in 2010, which corresponds to 35 pb^-1 of pp collisions delivered by the LHC at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV. In a subsample of events with single pp collisions, measurementes corrected for detector efficiency and resolution are presented with full systematic uncertainties. Jet invariant mass, kt splitting scales and n-subjettiness variables are presented for anti-kt R = 1.0 jets and Cambridge-Aachen R = 1.2 jets. Jet invariant-mass spectra for Cambridge-Aachen R = 1.2 jets after a splitting and filtering procedure are also presented. Leading-order parton-shower Monte Carlo predictions for these variables are found to be broadly in agreement with data. The dependence of mean jet mass on additional pp interactions is also explored.

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |$\eta$| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-$k_t$ algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," $R_{cp}$. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. $R_{cp}$ varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.

Measurements of the $W^{\pm} \rightarrow \ell^{\pm} \nu$ and $Z \rightarrow \ell^+ \ell^-$ production cross sections (where $\ell^{\pm}=e^{\pm},\mu^{\pm}$) in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV are presented using data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 81 pb$^{-1}$ The total inclusive $W^{\pm}$-boson production cross sections times the single-lepton-flavour branching ratios are $\sigma_{W^+}^{tot}= 11.83 \pm 0.02 (stat) \pm 0.32 (sys) \pm 0.25 (lumi)$ nb and $\sigma_{W^-}^{tot} = 8.79 \pm 0.02 (stat) \pm 0.24 (sys) \pm 0.18 (lumi)$ nb for $W^+$ and $W^-$, respectively. The total inclusive $Z$-boson production cross section times leptonic branching ratio, within the invariant mass window $66 < m_{\ell\ell} < 116$ GeV, is $\sigma_{Z}^{tot} = 1.981 \pm 0.007 (stat) \pm 0.038 (sys) \pm 0.042 (lumi)$ nb. The $W^+$, $W^-$, and $Z$-boson production cross sections and cross-section ratios within a fiducial region defined by the detector acceptance are also measured. The cross-section ratios benefit from significant cancellation of experimental uncertainties, resulting in $\sigma_{W^+}^{fid}/\sigma_{W^-}^{fid} = 1.295 \pm 0.003 (stat) \pm 0.010 (sys)$ and $\sigma_{W^{\pm}}^{fid}/\sigma_{Z}^{fid} = 10.31 \pm 0.04 (stat) \pm 0.20 (sys)$. Theoretical predictions, based on calculations accurate to next-to-next-to-leading order for quantum chromodynamics and to next-to-leading order for electroweak processes and which employ different parton distribution function sets, are compared to these measurements.