A search for strongly produced supersymmetric particles using signatures involving multiple energetic jets and either two isolated same-sign leptons ($e$ or $\mu$), or at least three isolated leptons, is presented. The analysis relies on the identification of $b$-jets and high missing transverse momentum to achieve good sensitivity. A data sample of proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}= 13$ TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2016, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb$^{-1}$, is used for the search. No significant excess over the Standard Model prediction is observed. The results are interpreted in several simplified supersymmetric models featuring $R$-parity conservation or $R$-parity violation, extending the exclusion limits from previous searches. In models considering gluino pair production, gluino masses are excluded up to 1.87 TeV at 95% confidence level. When bottom squarks are pair-produced and decay to a chargino and a top quark, models with bottom squark masses below 700 GeV and light neutralinos are excluded at 95% confidence level. In addition, model-independent limits are set on a possible contribution of new phenomena to the signal region yields.
This paper presents for the first time a precise measurement of the production properties of the Z boson in the full phase space of the decay leptons. This is in contrast to the many previous precise unfolded measurements performed in the fiducial phase space of the decay leptons. The measurement is obtained from proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment in 2012 at $\sqrt s$ = 8 TeV at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb$^{-1}$. The results, based on a total of 15.3 million Z-boson decays to electron and muon pairs, extend and improve a previous measurement of the full set of angular coefficients describing Z-boson decay. The double-differential cross-section distributions in Z-boson transverse momentum p$_T$ and rapidity y are measured in the pole region, defined as 80 $<$ m $<$ 100 GeV, over the range $|y| <$ 3.6. The total uncertainty of the normalised cross-section measurements in the peak region of the p$_T$ distribution is dominated by statistical uncertainties over the full range and increases as a function of rapidity from 0.5-1.0% for $|y| <$ 2.0 to 2-7% at higher rapidities. The results for the rapidity-dependent transverse momentum distributions are compared to state-of-the-art QCD predictions, which combine in the best cases approximate N$^4$LL resummation with N$^3$LO fixed-order perturbative calculations. The differential rapidity distributions integrated over p$_T$ are even more precise, with accuracies from 0.2-0.3% for $|y| <$ 2.0 to 0.4-0.9% at higher rapidities, and are compared to fixed-order QCD predictions using the most recent parton distribution functions. The agreement between data and predictions is quite good in most cases.
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