Electroweak symmetry breaking explains the origin of the masses of elementary particles through their interactions with the Higgs field. Besides the measurements of the Higgs boson properties, the study of the scattering of massive vector bosons with spin one allows the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking to be probed. Among all processes related to vector-boson scattering, the electroweak production of two jets and a $Z$-boson pair is a rare and important one. Here we report the observation of this process from proton-proton collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139/fb recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. We consider two different final states originating from the decays of the $Z$-boson pair - one containing four charged leptons and the other containing two charged leptons and two neutrinos. The hypothesis of no electroweak production is rejected with a statistical significance of 5.7 $\sigma$, and the measured cross-section for electroweak production is consistent with the standard model prediction. In addition, we report cross-sections for inclusive production of a $Z$-boson pair and two jets for the two final states.
Measured and predicted fiducial cross-sections in both the lllljj and ll$\nu\nu$jj channels for the inclusive ZZjj processes. Uncertainties due to different sources are presented
Signal strength and significance of EW ZZjj processes
Signal strength and significance of EW ZZjj processes
A measurement of inclusive and differential fiducial cross-sections for the production of the Higgs boson decaying into two photons is performed using $139~\text{fb}^{-1}$ of proton--proton collision data recorded at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The inclusive cross-section times branching ratio, in a fiducial region closely matching the experimental selection, is measured to be $67\pm 6$ fb, which is in agreement with the state-of-the-art Standard Model prediction of $64\pm 4$ fb. Extrapolating this result to the full phase space and correcting for the branching ratio, the total cross-section for Higgs boson production is estimated to be $58\pm 6$ pb. In addition, the cross-sections in four fiducial regions sensitive to various Higgs boson production modes and differential cross-sections as a function of either one or two of several observables are measured. All the measurements are found to be in agreement with the Standard Model predictions. The measured transverse momentum distribution of the Higgs boson is used as an indirect probe of the Yukawa coupling of the Higgs boson to the bottom and charm quarks. In addition, five differential cross-section measurements are used to constrain anomalous Higgs boson couplings to vector bosons in the Standard Model effective field theory framework.
Measured inclusive cross sections in the five fiducial regions. Each systematic uncertainty source is fully uncorrelated with the other sources.
Measured differential cross section with associated uncertainties as a function of $p_{T}^{\gamma\gamma}$. Each systematic uncertainty source is fully uncorrelated with the other sources and fully correlated across bins, except for the background modelling systematics for which an uncorrelated treatment across bins is more appropriate.
Measured differential cross section with associated uncertainties as a function of $N_\mathrm{jets}$. Each systematic uncertainty source is fully uncorrelated with the other sources and fully correlated across bins, except for the background modelling systematics for which an uncorrelated treatment across bins is more appropriate.
The azimuthal variation of jet yields in heavy-ion collisions provides information about the path-length dependence of the energy loss experienced by partons passing through the hot, dense nuclear matter known as the quark-gluon plasma. This paper presents the azimuthal anisotropy coefficients $v_2$, $v_3$, and $v_4$ measured for jets in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} =$ 5.02 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurement uses data collected in 2015 and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.2 nb$^{-1}$. The $v_n$ values are measured as a function of the transverse momentum of the jets between 71 GeV and 398 GeV and the event centrality. A nonzero value of $v_2$ is observed in all but the most central collisions. The value of $v_2$ is largest for jets with lower transverse momentum, with values up to 0.05 in mid-central collisions. A smaller, nonzero value of $v_3$ of approximately 0.01 is measured with no significant dependence on jet $p_T$ or centrality, suggesting that fluctuations in the initial state play a small but distinct role in jet energy loss. No significant deviation of $v_4$ from zero is observed in the measured kinematic region.
The JES for R = 0.2 jets in Pb+Pb collisions as a function of $p_T^{truth}$ for centrality selections of 0-5%, 5-10%, 10-20%, 20-40% and 40-60%.
The JER for R = 0.2 jets in Pb+Pb collisions as a function of $p_T^{truth}$ for centrality selections of 0-5%, 5-10%, 10-20%, 20-40% and 40-60%.
The JES for R = 0.2 jets in Pb+Pb collisions as a function of $2|\Psi_2-\phi^{reco}|$ for centrality selections of 0-5%, 5-10%, 10-20%, 20-40% and 40-60%.
A search for decays of pair-produced neutral long-lived particles (LLPs) is presented using 139 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015-2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Dedicated techniques were developed for the reconstruction of displaced jets produced by LLPs decaying hadronically in the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter. Two search regions are defined for different LLP kinematic regimes. The observed numbers of events are consistent with the expected background, and limits for several benchmark signals are determined. For a SM Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, branching ratios above 10% are excluded at 95% confidence level for values of $c$ times LLP mean proper lifetime in the range between 20 mm and 10 m depending on the model. Upper limits are also set on the cross-section times branching ratio for scalars with a mass of 60 GeV and for masses between 200 GeV and 1 TeV.
CalRatio triggers which were available during the LHC Run 2 data-taking, and corresponding integrated luminosity collected in each period. The high-E<sub>T</sub> CalRatio trigger with E<sub>T</sub> > 60 GeV was disabled in 2017 for instantaneous luminosities higher than 1.4 × 10<sup>34</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>. Two versions of the low-E<sub>T</sub> CalRatio trigger were used, with slight differences in their algorithms. The details are reported in Section 4.
Trigger efficiency for simulated signal events as a function of the LLP p<sub>T</sub> for one of the low-E<sub>T</sub> signal samples for HLT CalRatio triggers seeded by the high-E<sub>T</sub> L1 triggers with E<sub>T</sub> thresholds of 60 GeV and 100 GeV and by the two versions of the low-E<sub>T</sub> L1 triggers. Only statistical uncertainties are shown.
Trigger efficiency for simulated signal events as a function of the LLP p<sub>T</sub> for one of the high-E<sub>T</sub> signal samples for HLT CalRatio triggers seeded by the high-E<sub>T</sub> L1 triggers with E<sub>T</sub> thresholds of 60 GeV and 100 GeV and by the two versions of the low-E<sub>T</sub> L1 triggers. Only statistical uncertainties are shown.
The $t\bar{t}$ production cross-section is measured in the lepton+jets channel using proton$-$proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. Events with exactly one charged lepton and four or more jets in the final state, with at least one jet containing $b$-hadrons, are used to determine the $t\bar{t}$ production cross-section through a profile-likelihood fit. The inclusive cross-section is measured to be ${\sigma_{\text{inc}} = 830 \pm 0.4~ \text{(stat.)}\pm 36~\text{(syst.)}\pm 14~\text{(lumi.)}~\mathrm{pb}}$ with a relative uncertainty of 4.6 %. The result is consistent with theoretical calculations at next-to-next-to-leading order in perturbative QCD. The fiducial $t\bar{t}$ cross-section within the experimental acceptance is also measured.
The results of fitted inclusive and fiducial ${t\bar{t}}$ cross-sections
The results of fitted inclusive and fiducial ${t\bar{t}}$ cross-sections
Ranking of the systematic uncertainties on the measured cross-section, normalised to the predicted value, in the inclusive fit to data. The impact of each nuisance parameter, $\Delta \sigma_{\text{inc}}/\sigma^{\text{pred.}}_{\text{inc}}$, is computed by comparing the nominal best-fit value of $\sigma_{\text{inc}}/\sigma^{\text{pred}}_{\text{inc}}$ with the result of the fit when fixing the considered nuisance parameter to its best-fit value, $\theta$, shifted by its pre-fit (post-fit) uncertainties $\pm \Delta \theta$ ($\pm \Delta \hat{\theta}$). The figure shows the effect of the ten most significant uncertainties.
A search for the pair production of heavy leptons as predicted by the type-III seesaw mechanism is presented. The search uses proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to 139 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity recorded by the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis focuses on final states with three or four electrons or muons from the possible decays of new heavy leptons via intermediate electroweak bosons. No significant deviations above the Standard Model expectation are observed; upper and lower limits on the heavy lepton production cross-section and masses are derived respectively. These results are then combined for the first time with the ones already published by ATLAS using the channel with two leptons in the final state. The observed lower limit on the mass of the type-III seesaw heavy leptons combining two, three and four lepton channels together is 910 GeV at the 95% confidence level.
Expected background yields and observed data after the background-only fit in the SRs.
Distribution of $m_{\mathrm{T},3l}$ in the ZL SR after the background-only fit. The uncertainty on the expected number of background events includes all statistical and systematic post-fit uncertainties with the correlations between various background sources taken into account.
Distribution of $m_{\mathrm{T},3l}$ in the ZL Veto SR after the background-only fit. The uncertainty on the expected number of background events includes all statistical and systematic post-fit uncertainties with the correlations between various background sources taken into account.
A search for dark-matter particles in events with large missing transverse momentum and a Higgs boson candidate decaying into two photons is reported. The search uses $139$ fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with the ATLAS detector at the CERN LHC between 2015 and 2018. No significant excess of events over the Standard Model predictions is observed. The results are interpreted by extracting limits on three simplified models that include either vector or pseudoscalar mediators and predict a final state with a pair of dark-matter candidates and a Higgs boson decaying into two photons.
The $E^{miss}_{T}$ distribution of data and MC after the diphoton selection.
The observed exclusion contor for the $Z^{\prime}_{B}$ model in the $m_{\chi}$-$m_{Z^{\prime}_{B}}$ plane.
The expected exclusion contor for the $Z^{\prime}_{B}$ model in the $m_{\chi}$-$m_{Z^{\prime}_{B}}$ plane.
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.
The average charged-particle muliplicity per unit of rapidity for ETARAP=0 as a function of the centre-of-mass energy.
The average charged-particle muliplicity per unit of rapidity for ETARAP=0 as a function of the centre-of-mass energy.
The extrapolated ($\tau > 30$ ps) average charged-particle muliplicity per unit of rapidity for ETARAP=0 as a function of the centre-of-mass energy.
This paper presents studies of Bose-Einstein correlations (BEC) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, using data from the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Data were collected in a special low-luminosity configuration with a minimum-bias trigger and a high-multiplicity track trigger, accumulating integrated luminosities of 151 $\mu$b$^{-1}$ and 8.4 nb$^{-1}$ respectively. The BEC are measured for pairs of like-sign charged particles, each with $|\eta|$ < 2.5, for two kinematic ranges: the first with particle $p_T$ > 100 MeV and the second with particle $p_T$ > 500 MeV. The BEC parameters, characterizing the source radius and particle correlation strength, are investigated as functions of charged-particle multiplicity (up to 300) and average transverse momentum of the pair (up to 1.5 GeV). The double-differential dependence on charged-particle multiplicity and average transverse momentum of the pair is also studied. The BEC radius is found to be independent of the charged-particle multiplicity for high charged-particle multiplicity (above 100), confirming a previous observation at lower energy. This saturation occurs independent of the transverse momentum of the pair.
Comparison of single-ratio two-particle correlation functions, C<sub>2</sub><sup>data</sup>(Q) and C<sub>2</sub><sup>MC</sup>(Q), with the two-particle double-ratio correlation function, R<sub>2</sub>(Q), for the high-multiplicity track (HMT) events using the opposite hemisphere (OHP) like-charge particles pairs reference sample for k<sub>T</sub> - interval 1000 < k<sub>T</sub> ≤ 1500 MeV.
Comparison of single-ratio two-particle correlation functions, C<sub>2</sub><sup>data</sup>(Q) and C<sub>2</sub><sup>MC</sup>(Q), with the two-particle double-ratio correlation function, R<sub>2</sub>(Q), for the high-multiplicity track (HMT) events using the unlike-charge particle (UCP) pairs reference sample for k<sub>T</sub> - interval 1000 < k<sub>T</sub> ≤ 1500 MeV.
The Bose-Einstein correlation (BEC) parameter R as a function of n<sub>ch</sub> for MB events using different MC generators in the calculation of R<sub>2</sub>(Q). The uncertainties shown are statistical. The lower panel of each plot shows the ratio of the BEC parameters obtained using EPOS LHC (red circles), Pythia 8 Monash (blue squares) and Herwig++ UE-EE-5 (green triangles) compared with the parameters obtained using Pythia 8 A2. The gray band in the lower panels is the MC systematic uncertainty, obtained as explained in the text.
A search for events with two displaced vertices from long-lived particles (LLP) pairs using data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC is presented. This analysis uses 139~fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV recorded in 2015-2018. The search employs techniques for reconstructing vertices of LLPs decaying to jets in the muon spectrometer displaced between 3 m and 14 m with respect to the primary interaction vertex. The observed numbers of events are consistent with the expected background and limits for several benchmark signals are determined. For the Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, the paper reports the first exclusion limits for branching fractions into neutral long-lived particles below 0.1%, while branching fractions above 10% are excluded at 95% confidence level for LLP proper lifetimes ranging from 4 cm to 72.4 m. In addition, the paper present the first results for the decay of LLPs into into $t\bar{t}$ in the ATLAS muon spectrometer.
Efficiency for the Muon RoI Cluster trigger as a function of the decay position of the LLP for some scalar portal samples in the MS barrel for events passing the data quality requirements and having a reconstructed primary vertex. These efficiency distributions are based solely on MC simulation, without any corrections applied for mismodeling. The vertical lines show the relevant detector boundaries, where “HCal end” is the outer limit of the hadronic calorimeter, “RPC 1/2” represent the first/second stations of RPC chambers, “TGC 1” represents the first stations of TGC chambers and “L/S” indicate whether they are in the Large or Small sectors.
Efficiency for the Muon RoI Cluster trigger as a function of the decay position of the LLP for some scalar portal samples in the MS endcaps for events passing the data quality requirements and having a reconstructed primary vertex. These efficiency distributions are based solely on MC simulation, without any corrections applied for mismodeling. The vertical lines show the relevant detector boundaries, where “HCal end” is the outer limit of the hadronic calorimeter, “RPC 1/2” represent the first/second stations of RPC chambers, “TGC 1” represents the first stations of TGC chambers and “L/S” indicate whether they are in the Large or Small sectors.
Efficiency to reconstruct an MS DV in the MS barrel fiducial volume as a function of the transverse decay position of the LLP for scalar portal samples with $m_\varPhi=125$~\GeV\ for vertices that pass the baseline event selection and satisfy the vertex isolation criteria. The efficiency distributions are corrected for mismodeling. The vertical lines show the relevant detector boundaries, where ``HCal end'' is the outer limit of the hadronic calorimeter, ``MDT 1/2'' represent the first/second stations of MDT chambers and ``L/S'' indicate whether they are in Large or Small sectors.
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