Pseudorapidity gap distributions in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV are studied using a minimum bias data sample with an integrated luminosity of 7.1 inverse microbarns. Cross sections are measured differentially in terms of Delta eta F, the larger of the pseudorapidity regions extending to the limits of the ATLAS sensitivity, at eta = +/- 4.9, in which no final state particles are produced above a transverse momentum threshold p_T Cut. The measurements span the region 0 < Delta eta F < 8 for 200 < p_T Cut < 800 MeV. At small Delta eta F, the data test the reliability of hadronisation models in describing rapidity and transverse momentum fluctuations in final state particle production. The measurements at larger gap sizes are dominated by contributions from the single diffractive dissociation process (pp -> Xp), enhanced by double dissociation (pp -> XY) where the invariant mass of the lighter of the two dissociation systems satisfies M_Y <~ 7 GeV. The resulting cross section is d sigma / d Delta eta F ~ 1 mb for Delta eta F >~ 3. The large rapidity gap data are used to constrain the value of the pomeron intercept appropriate to triple Regge models of soft diffraction. The cross section integrated over all gap sizes is compared with other LHC inelastic cross section measurements.

A search for pair-produced third generation scalar leptoquarks is presented, using proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$= 7 TeV at the LHC. The data were recorded with the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb$^{-1}$. Each leptoquark is assumed to decay to a tau lepton and a b-quark with a branching fraction equal to 100%. No statistically significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Third generation leptoquarks are therefore excluded at 95% confidence level for masses less than 534 GeV.

The momentum-weighted sum of the charges of tracks associated to a jet is sensitive to the charge of the initiating quark or gluon. This paper presents a measurement of the distribution of momentum-weighted sums, called jet charge, in dijet events using 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of data recorded with the ATLAS detector at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV in $pp$ collisions at the LHC. The jet charge distribution is unfolded to remove distortions from detector effects and the resulting particle-level distribution is compared with several models. The $p_T$-dependence of the jet charge distribution average and standard deviation are compared to predictions obtained with several LO and NLO parton distribution functions. The data are also compared to different Monte Carlo simulations of QCD dijet production using various settings of the free parameters within these models. The chosen value of the strong coupling constant used to calculate gluon radiation is found to have a significant impact on the predicted jet charge. There is evidence for a $p_{T}$-dependence of the jet charge distribution for a given jet flavor. In agreement with perturbative QCD predictions, the data show that the average jet charge of quark-initiated jets decreases in magnitude as the energy of the jet increases.

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.

Results are presented of a search for supersymmetric particles in events with large missing transverse momentum and at least one heavy flavour jet candidate in sqrt{s} = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions. In a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1 recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, no significant excess is observed with respect to the prediction for Standard Model processes. For R-parity conserving models in which sbottoms (stops) are the only squarks to appear in the gluino decay cascade, gluino masses below 590 GeV (520 GeV) are excluded at the 95% C.L. The results are also interpreted in an MSUGRA/CMSSM supersymmetry breaking scenario with tan(beta)=40 and in an SO(10) model framework.

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.

This article reports on a search for dark matter pair production in association with bottom or top quarks in 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions collected at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events with large missing transverse momentum are selected when produced in association with high-momentum jets of which one or more are identified as jets containing $b$-quarks. Final states with top quarks are selected by requiring a high jet multiplicity and in some cases a single lepton. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectations and limits are set on the mass scale of effective field theories that describe scalar and tensor interactions between dark matter and Standard Model particles. Limits on the dark-matter--nucleon cross-section for spin-independent and spin-dependent interactions are also provided. These limits are particularly strong for low-mass dark matter. Using a simplified model, constraints are set on the mass of dark matter and of a coloured mediator suitable to explain a possible signal of annihilating dark matter.

This paper presents a search for a new heavy particle produced in association with a top or antitop quark. Two models in which the new heavy particle is a color singlet or a color triplet are considered, decaying respectively to tbarq or tq, leading to a resonance within the ttbar + jets signature. The full 2011 ATLAS pp collision dataset from the LHC (4.7 fb-1) is used to search for ttbar events produced in association with jets, in which one of the W bosons from the top quarks decays leptonically and the other decays hadronically. The data are consistent with the Standard Model expectation, and a new particle with mass below 430 GeV for both W boson and color triplet models is excluded at 95% confidence level, assuming unit right-handed coupling.

A search for the weak production of charginos and neutralinos into final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis uses 2.06 fb^-1 of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV proton-proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with standard model expectations in two signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric and simplified models. For the simplified models, degenerate lightest chargino and next-to-lightest neutralino masses up to 300 GeV are excluded for mass differences from the lightest neutralino up to 300 GeV.

In models of anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking (AMSB), the lightest chargino is predicted to have a lifetime long enough to be detected in collider experiments. This letter explores AMSB scenarios in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV by attempting to identify decaying charginos which result in tracks that appear to have few associated hits in the outer region of the tracking system. The search was based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.02 fb^-1 collected with the ATLAS detector in 2011. The pT spectrum of candidate tracks is found to be consistent with the expectation from Standard Model background processes and constraints on the lifetime and the production cross section were obtained. In the minimal AMSB framework with m_3/2 < 32 TeV, m_0 < 1.5 TeV, tan(beta) = 5 and mu > 0, a chargino having mass below 92 GeV and a lifetime between 0.5 ns and 2 ns is excluded at 95% confidence level.