A study of WZ production in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb^-1 collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2011. In total, 317 candidates, with a background expectation of 68+/-10 events, are observed in double-leptonic decay final states with electrons, muons and missing transverse momentum. The total cross-section is determined to be sigma_WZ(tot) = 19.0+1.4/-1.3(stat.)+/-0.9(syst.)+/-0.4(lumi.) pb, consistent with the Standard Model expectation of 17.6+1.1/-1.0 pb. Limits on anomalous triple gauge boson couplings are derived using the transverse momentum spectrum of Z bosons in the selected events. The cross section is also presented as a function of Z boson transverse momentum and diboson invariant mass.

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.

The ATLAS experiment has observed 1995 Z boson candidates in data corresponding to 0.15 inverse nb of integrated luminosity obtained in the 2011 LHC Pb+Pb run at sqrt(s_NN)=2.76 TeV. The Z bosons are reconstructed via di-electron and di-muon decay channels, with a background contamination of less than 3%. Results from the two channels are consistent and are combined. Within the statistical and systematic uncertainties, the per-event Z boson yield is proportional to the number of binary collisions estimated by the Glauber model. The elliptic anisotropy of the azimuthal distribution of the Z boson with respect to the event plane is found to be consistent with zero.

This paper describes measurements of the sum of the transverse energy of particles as a function of particle pseudorapidity, eta, in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy, sqrt(s) = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are performed in the region |eta| < 4.8 for two event classes: those requiring the presence of particles with a low transverse momentum and those requiring particles with a significant transverse momentum. In the second dataset measurements are made in the region transverse to the hard scatter. The distributions are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generators, which generally tend to underestimate the amount of transverse energy at high |eta|.

This paper presents a search for the t-channel exchange of an R-parity violating scalar top quark (\={t}) in the emu continuum using 2.1/fb of data collected by the ATLAS detector in sqrt(s) = 7 TeV pp collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. Data are found to be consistent with the expectation from the Standard Model backgrounds. Limits on R-parity-violating couplings at 95% C.L. are calculated as a function of the scalar top mass (m_{\={t}}). The upper limits on the production cross section for pp->emuX, through the t-channel exchange of a scalar top quark, ranges from 170 fb for m_{\={t}}=95 GeV to 30 fb for m_{\={t}}=1000 GeV.

The ATLAS experiment at the LHC has measured the centrality dependence of charged particle pseudorapidity distributions over |eta| < 2 in lead-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV. In order to include particles with transverse momentum as low as 30 MeV, the data were recorded with the central solenoid magnet off. Charged particles were reconstructed with two algorithms (2-point 'tracklets' and full tracks) using information from the pixel detector only. The lead-lead collision centrality was characterized by the total transverse energy in the forward calorimeter in the range 3.2 < |eta| < 4.9. Measurements are presented of the per-event charged particle density distribution, dN_ch/deta, and the average charged particle multiplicity in the pseudorapidity interval |eta|<0.5 in several intervals of collision centrality. The results are compared to previous mid-rapidity measurements at the LHC and RHIC. The variation of the mid-rapidity charged particle yield per colliding nucleon pair with the number of participants is consistent with the lower sqrt(s_NN) results. The shape of the dN_ch/deta distribution is found to be independent of centrality within the systematic uncertainties of the measurement.

Using the ATLAS detector, observations have been made of a centrality-dependent dijet asymmetry in the collisions of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider. In a sample of lead-lead events with a per-nucleon center of mass energy of 2.76 TeV, selected with a minimum bias trigger, jets are reconstructed in fine-grained, longitudinally-segmented electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters. The underlying event is measured and subtracted event-by-event, giving estimates of jet transverse energy above the ambient background. The transverse energies of dijets in opposite hemispheres is observed to become systematically more unbalanced with increasing event centrality leading to a large number of events which contain highly asymmetric dijets. This is the first observation of an enhancement of events with such large dijet asymmetries, not observed in proton-proton collisions, and which may point to an interpretation in terms of strong jet energy loss in a hot, dense medium.

Results of three searches are presented for the production of supersymmetric particles decaying into final states with missing transverse momentum and exactly two isolated leptons, e or mu. The analysis uses a data sample collected during the first half of 2011 that corresponds to a total integrated luminosity of 1 fb^-1 of sqrt{s} = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Opposite-sign and same-sign dilepton events are separately studied, with no deviations from the Standard Model expectation observed. Additionally, in opposite- sign events, a search is made for an excess of same-flavour over different-flavour lepton pairs. Effective production cross sections in excess of 9.9 fb for opposite-sign events containing supersymmetric particles with missing transverse momentum greater than 250 GeV are excluded at 95% CL. For same-sign events containing supersymmetric particles with missing transverse momentum greater than 100 GeV, effective production cross sections in excess of 14.8 fb are excluded at 95% CL. The latter limit is interpreted in a simplified weak gaugino production model excluding chargino masses up to 200 GeV.

Distributions sensitive to the underlying event are studied in events containing one or more charged-particle jets produced in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These measurements reflect 800 inverse microbarns of data taken during 2010. Jets are reconstructed using the antikt algorithm with radius parameter R varying between 0.2 and 1.0. Distributions of the charged-particle multiplicity, the scalar sum of the transverse momentum of charged particles, and the average charged-particle pT are measured as functions of pT^JET in regions transverse to and opposite the leading jet for 4 GeV < pT^JET < 100 GeV. In addition, the R-dependence of the mean values of these observables is studied. In the transverse region, both the multiplicity and the scalar sum of the transverse momentum at fixed pT^JET vary significantly with R, while the average charged-particle transverse momentum has a minimal dependence on R. Predictions from several Monte Carlo tunes have been compared to the data; the predictions from Pythia 6, based on tunes that have been determined using LHC data, show reasonable agreement with the data, including the dependence on R. Comparisons with other generators indicate that additional tuning of soft-QCD parameters is necessary for these generators. The measurements presented here provide a testing ground for further development of the Monte Carlo models.

The jet fragmentation function and transverse profile for jets with 25 GeV < ptJet < 500 GeV and etaJet<1.2 produced in proton-proton collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV are presented. The measurement is performed using data with an integrated luminosity of 36 pb^-1. Jets are reconstructed and their momentum measured using calorimetric information. The momenta of the charged particle constituents are measured using the tracking system. The distributions corrected for detector effects are compared with various Monte Carlo event generators and generator tunes. Several of these choices show good agreement with the measured fragmentation function. None of these choices reproduce both the transverse profile and fragmentation function over the full kinematic range of the measurement.