A search is presented for the pair production of heavy vector-like $T$ and $B$ quarks, primarily targeting the $T$ quark decays to a $W$ boson and a $b$-quark. The search is based on $36.1$ fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV recorded in 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Data are analysed in the lepton-plus-jets final state, including at least one $b$-tagged jet and a large-radius jet identified as originating from the hadronic decay of a high-momentum $W$ boson. No significant deviation from the Standard Model expectation is observed in the reconstructed $T$ mass distribution. The observed 95% confidence level lower limit on the $T$ mass are 1350 GeV assuming 100% branching ratio to $Wb$. In the SU(2) singlet scenario, the lower mass limit is 1170 GeV. This search is also sensitive to a heavy vector-like $B$ quark decaying to $Wt$ and other final states. The results are thus reinterpreted to provide a 95% confidence level lower limit on the $B$ quark mass at 1250 GeV assuming 100% branching ratio to $Wt$; in the SU(2) singlet scenario, the limit is 1080 GeV. Mass limits on both $T$ and $B$ production are also set as a function of the decay branching ratios. The 100% branching ratio limits are found to be applicable to heavy vector-like $Y$ and $X$ production that decay to $Wb$ and $Wt$, respectively.
A measurement of the cross section of the associated production of a single top quark and a W boson in final states with a muon or electron and jets in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV is presented. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36 fb$^{-1}$ collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC in 2016. A boosted decision tree is used to separate the tW signal from the dominant $\mathrm{t\bar{t}}$ background, whilst the subleading W+jets and multijet backgrounds are constrained using data-based estimates. This result is the first observation of the tW process in final states containing a muon or electron and jets, with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations. The cross section is determined to be 89 $\pm$ 4 (stat) $\pm$ 12 (syst) pb, consistent with the standard model.
A search for R-parity violating supersymmetry in final states characterised by high jet multiplicity, at least one isolated light lepton and either zero or at least three $b$-tagged jets is presented. The search uses 139 fb$^{-1}$ of $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. The results are interpreted in the context of R-parity-violating supersymmetry models that feature gluino production, top-squark production, or electroweakino production. The dominant sources of background are estimated using a data-driven model, based on observables at medium jet multiplicity, to predict the $b$-tagged jet multiplicity distribution at the higher jet multiplicities used in the search. Machine learning techniques are used to reach sensitivity to electroweakino production, extending the data-driven background estimation to the shape of the machine learning discriminant. No significant excess over the Standard Model expectation is observed and exclusion limits at the 95% confidence-level are extracted, reaching as high as 2.4 TeV in gluino mass, 1.35 TeV in top-squark mass, and 320 (365) GeV in higgsino (wino) mass.
At the LHC energy of $\sqrt s = 7\,{\mathrm { TeV}}$ , under various beam and background conditions, luminosities, and Roman Pot positions, TOTEM has measured the differential cross-section for proton-proton elastic scattering as a function of the four-momentum transfer squared t. The results of the different analyses are in excellent agreement demonstrating no sizeable dependence on the beam conditions. Due to the very close approach of the Roman Pot detectors to the beam center (≈5σ(beam)) in a dedicated run with β* = 90 m, |t|-values down to 5·10(−)(3) GeV(2) were reached. The exponential slope of the differential elastic cross-section in this newly explored |t|-region remained unchanged and thus an exponential fit with only one constant B = (19.9 ± 0.3) GeV(−)(2) over the large |t|-range from 0.005 to 0.2 GeV(2) describes the differential distribution well. The high precision of the measurement and the large fit range lead to an error on the slope parameter B which is remarkably small compared to previous experiments. It allows a precise extrapolation over the non-visible cross-section (only 9%) to t = 0. With the luminosity from CMS, the elastic cross-section was determined to be (25.4 ± 1.1) mb, and using in addition the optical theorem, the total pp cross-section was derived to be (98.6 ± 2.2) mb. For model comparisons the t-distributions are tabulated including the large |t|-range of the previous measurement (TOTEM Collaboration (Antchev G. et al), EPL, 95 (2011) 41001).
A search for high-mass resonances decaying to $\tau\nu$ using proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV produced by the Large Hadron Collider is presented. Only $\tau$-lepton decays with hadrons in the final state are considered. The data were recorded with the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb$^{-1}$. No statistically significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed; model-independent upper limits are set on the visible $\tau\nu$ production cross section. Heavy $W^{\prime}$ bosons with masses less than 3.7 TeV in the Sequential Standard Model and masses less than 2.2-3.8 TeV depending on the coupling in the non-universal G(221) model are excluded at the 95% credibility level.
We report the first measurement of charged particle elliptic flow in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is performed in the central pseudorapidity region (|$\eta$|<0.8) and transverse momentum range 0.2< $p_{\rm T}$< 5.0 GeV/$c$. The elliptic flow signal v$_2$, measured using the 4-particle correlation method, averaged over transverse momentum and pseudorapidity is 0.087 $\pm$ 0.002 (stat) $\pm$ 0.004 (syst) in the 40-50% centrality class. The differential elliptic flow v$_2(p_{\rm T})$ reaches a maximum of 0.2 near $p_{\rm T}$ = 3 GeV/$c$. Compared to RHIC Au-Au collisions at 200 GeV, the elliptic flow increases by about 30%. Some hydrodynamic model predictions which include viscous corrections are in agreement with the observed increase.
Heavy-flavour hadron production provides information about the transport properties and microscopic structure of the quark-gluon plasma created in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. A measurement of the muons from semileptonic decays of charm and bottom hadrons produced in Pb+Pb and $pp$ collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. The Pb+Pb data were collected in 2015 and 2018 with sampled integrated luminosities of $208~\mathrm{\mu b}^{-1}$ and $38~\mathrm{\mu b^{-1}}$, respectively, and $pp$ data with a sampled integrated luminosity of $1.17~\mathrm{pb}^{-1}$ were collected in 2017. Muons from heavy-flavour semileptonic decays are separated from the light-flavour hadronic background using the momentum imbalance between the inner detector and muon spectrometer measurements, and muons originating from charm and bottom decays are further separated via the muon track's transverse impact parameter. Differential yields in Pb+Pb collisions and differential cross sections in $pp$ collisions for such muons are measured as a function of muon transverse momentum from 4 GeV to 30 GeV in the absolute pseudorapidity interval $|\eta| < 2$. Nuclear modification factors for charm and bottom muons are presented as a function of muon transverse momentum in intervals of Pb+Pb collision centrality. The measured nuclear modification factors quantify a significant suppression of the yields of muons from decays of charm and bottom hadrons, with stronger effects for muons from charm hadron decays.
The fragmentation properties of jets containing $b$-hadrons are studied using charged $B$ mesons in 139 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during the period from 2015 to 2018. The $B$ mesons are reconstructed using the decay of $B^{\pm}$ into $J/\psi K^{\pm}$, with the $J/\psi$ decaying into a pair of muons. Jets are reconstructed using the anti-$k_t$ algorithm with radius parameter $R=0.4$. The measurement determines the longitudinal and transverse momentum profiles of the reconstructed $B$ hadrons with respect to the axes of the jets to which they are geometrically associated. These distributions are measured in intervals of the jet transverse momentum, ranging from 50 GeV to above 100 GeV. The results are corrected for detector effects and compared with several Monte Carlo predictions using different parton shower and hadronisation models. The results for the longitudinal and transverse profiles provide useful inputs to improve the description of heavy-flavour fragmentation in jets.
Differential production cross sections of J/$\psi$ and $\psi$(2S) charmonium and $\Upsilon$(nS) (n = 1, 2, 3) bottomonium states are measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} =$ 13 TeV, with data collected by the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.3 fb$^{-1}$ for the J/$\psi$ and 2.7 fb$^{-1}$ for the other mesons. The five quarkonium states are reconstructed in the dimuon decay channel, for dimuon rapidity $|y| <$ 1.2. The double-differential cross sections for each state are measured as a function of $y$ and transverse momentum, and compared to theoretical expectations. In addition, ratios are presented of cross sections for prompt $\psi$(2S) to J/$\psi$, $\Upsilon$(2S) to $\Upsilon$(1S), and $\Upsilon$(3S) to $\Upsilon$(1S) production.
Observables sensitive to the anomalous production of events containing hadronic jets and missing momentum in the plane transverse to the proton beams at the Large Hadron Collider are presented. The observables are defined as a ratio of cross sections, for events containing jets and large missing transverse momentum to events containing jets and a pair of charged leptons from the decay of a $Z/\gamma^\ast$ boson. This definition minimises experimental and theoretical systematic uncertainties in the measurements. This ratio is measured differentially with respect to a number of kinematic properties of the hadronic system in two phase-space regions; one inclusive single-jet region and one region sensitive to vector-boson-fusion topologies. The data are found to be in agreement with the Standard Model predictions and used to constrain a variety of theoretical models for dark-matter production, including simplified models, effective field theory models, and invisible decays of the Higgs boson. The measurements use 3.2 fb$^{-1}$ of proton--proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and are fully corrected for detector effects, meaning that the data can be used to constrain new-physics models beyond those shown in this paper.
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