A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing hadronic jets, missing transverse momentum but no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded in 2015 by the ATLAS experiment in $\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV proton--proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. No excess above the Standard Model background expectation was observed in 3.2 fb$^{-1}$ of analyzed data. Results are interpreted within simplified models that assume R-parity is conserved and the neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 1.51 TeV for a simplified model incorporating only a gluino octet and the lightest neutralino, assuming the lightest neutralino is massless. For a simplified model involving the strong production of mass-degenerate first- and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 1.03 TeV are excluded for a massless lightest neutralino. These limits substantially extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded by previous measurements with the ATLAS detector.
Differential cross sections for the production of at least four jets have been measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV at the Large Hadron Collider using the ATLAS detector. Events are selected if the four anti-$k_{t}$ R=0.4 jets with the largest transverse momentum ($p_{T}$) within the rapidity range $|y|<2.8$ are well separated ($dR^{\rm min}_{4j}>0.65$), all have $p_{T}>64$ GeV, and include at least one jet with $p_{T} >100$ GeV. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 $fb^{-1}$. The cross sections, corrected for detector effects, are compared to leading-order and next-to-leading-order calculations as a function of the jet momenta, invariant masses, minimum and maximum opening angles and other kinematic variables.
The four-lepton ($4\ell$, $\ell = e, \mu$) production cross section is measured in the mass range from 80 to 1000 GeV using 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of data in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The $4\ell$ events are produced in the decays of resonant $Z$ and Higgs bosons and the non-resonant $ZZ$ continuum originating from $q\bar q$, $gg$, and $qg$ initial states. A total of 476 signal candidate events are observed with a background expectation of $26.2 \pm 3.6$ events, enabling the measurement of the integrated cross section and the differential cross section as a function of the invariant mass and transverse momentum of the four-lepton system. In the mass range above $180$ GeV, assuming the theoretical constraint on the $q\bar q$ production cross section calculated with perturbative NNLO QCD and NLO electroweak corrections, the signal strength of the gluon-fusion component relative to its leading-order prediction is determined to be $\mu_{gg}=2.4 \pm 1.0 (stat.) \pm 0.5 (syst.)\pm 0.8 (theory)$.
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.
Measurements of the total and differential cross sections of Higgs boson production are performed using 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions produced by the Large Hadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Cross sections are obtained from measured $H \rightarrow \gamma \gamma$ and $H \rightarrow ZZ ^{*}\rightarrow 4\ell$ event yields, which are combined accounting for detector efficiencies, fiducial acceptances and branching fractions. Differential cross sections are reported as a function of Higgs boson transverse momentum, Higgs boson rapidity, number of jets in the event, and transverse momentum of the leading jet. The total production cross section is determined to be $\sigma_{pp \to H} = 33.0 \pm 5.3 \, ({\rm stat}) \pm 1.6 \, ({\rm sys}) \mathrm{pb}$. The measurements are compared to state-of-the-art predictions.
This Letter reports a measurement of the exclusive $\gamma\gamma\rightarrow \ell^+\ell^- (\ell=e, \mu)$ cross-section in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, based on an integrated luminosity of $4.6$ fb$^{-1}$. For the electron or muon pairs satisfying exclusive selection criteria, a fit to the dilepton acoplanarity distribution is used to extract the fiducial cross-sections. The cross-section in the electron channel is determined to be $\sigma_{\gamma\gamma\rightarrow e^+e^-}^{\mathrm{excl.}} = 0.428 \pm 0.035 (\mathrm{stat.}) \pm 0.018 (\mathrm{syst.})$ pb for a phase-space region with invariant mass of the electron pairs greater than 24 GeV, in which both electrons have transverse momentum $p_\mathrm{T}>12$ GeV and pseudorapidity $|\eta|<2.4$. For muon pairs with invariant mass greater than 20 GeV, muon transverse momentum $p_\mathrm{T}>10$ GeV and pseudorapidity $|\eta|<2.4$, the cross-section is determined to be $\sigma_{\gamma\gamma\rightarrow \mu^+\mu^- }^{\mathrm{excl.}} = 0.628 \pm 0.032 (\mathrm{stat.}) \pm 0.021 (\mathrm{syst.})$ pb. When proton absorptive effects due to the finite size of the proton are taken into account in the theory calculation, the measured cross-sections are found to be consistent with the theory prediction.
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 $\alpha_{\mathrm{s}}(m_Z) = 0.1173 \pm 0.0010 \mbox{ (exp.) }^{+0.0065}_{-0.0026} \mbox{ (theo.)}$.
The distribution and orientation of energy inside jets is predicted to be an experimental handle on colour connections between the hard--scatter quarks and gluons initiating the jets. This Letter presents a measurement of the distribution of one such variable, the jet pull angle. The pull angle is measured for jets produced in $t\bar{t}$ events with one $W$ boson decaying leptonically and the other decaying to jets using 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of data recorded with the ATLAS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV at the LHC. The jet pull angle distribution is corrected for detector resolution and acceptance effects and is compared to various models.
The number of charged particles inside jets is a widely used discriminant for identifying the quark or gluon nature of the initiating parton and is sensitive to both the perturbative and non-perturbative components of fragmentation. This paper presents a measurement of the average number of charged particles with $p_\text{T}>500$ MeV inside high-momentum jets in dijet events using 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of data recorded with the ATLAS detector in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV collisions at the LHC. The jets considered have transverse momenta from 50 GeV up to and beyond 1.5 TeV. The reconstructed charged-particle track multiplicity distribution is unfolded to remove distortions from detector effects and the resulting charged-particle multiplicity is compared to several models. Furthermore, quark and gluon jet fractions are used to extract the average charged-particle multiplicity for quark and gluon jets separately.
Event-shape observables measured using charged particles in inclusive $Z$-boson events are presented, using the electron and muon decay modes of the $Z$ bosons. The measurements are based on an integrated luminosity of $1.1 {\rm fb}^{-1}$ of proton--proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV. Charged-particle distributions, excluding the lepton--antilepton pair from the $Z$-boson decay, are measured in different ranges of transverse momentum of the $Z$ boson. Distributions include multiplicity, scalar sum of transverse momenta, beam thrust, transverse thrust, spherocity, and $\mathcal{F}$-parameter, which are in particular sensitive to properties of the underlying event at small values of the $Z$-boson transverse momentum. The Sherpa event generator shows larger deviations from the measured observables than Pythia8 and Herwig7. Typically, all three Monte Carlo generators provide predictions that are in better agreement with the data at high $Z$-boson transverse momenta than at low $Z$-boson transverse momenta and for the observables that are less sensitive to the number of charged particles in the event.
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