Search for pair production of squarks or gluinos decaying via sleptons or weak bosons in final states with two same-sign or three leptons with the ATLAS detector

A search for pair production of squarks or gluinos decaying via sleptons or weak bosons is reported. The search targets a final state with exactly two leptons with same-sign electric charge or at least three leptons without any charge requirement. The analysed data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Multiple signal regions are defined, targeting several SUSY simplified models yielding the desired final states. A single control region is used to constrain the normalisation of the WZ + jets background. No significant excess of events over the Standard Model expectation is observed. The results are interpreted in the context of several supersymmetric models featuring R-parity conservation or R-parity violation, yielding exclusion limits surpassing those from previous searches. In models considering gluino (squark) pair production, gluino (squark) masses up to 2.2 (1.7) TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level

Software Performance of the ATLAS Track Reconstruction for LHC Run 3

Charged particle reconstruction in the presence of many simultaneous proton–proton (pp) collisions in the LHC is a challenging task for the ATLAS experiment’s reconstruction software due to the combinatorial complexity. This paper describes the major changes made to adapt the software to reconstruct high-activity collisions with an average of 50 or more simultaneous pp interactions per bunch crossing (pileup) promptly using the available computing resources. The performance of the key components of the track reconstruction chain and its dependence on pile-up are evaluated, and the improvement achieved compared to the previous software version is quantified. For events with an average of 60 pp collisions per bunch crossing, the updated track reconstruction is twice as fast as the previous version, without significant reduction in reconstruction efficiency and while reducing the rate of combinatorial fake tracks by more than a factor two

Performance and calibration of quark/gluon-jet taggers using 140 fb⁻¹ of pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The identification of jets originating from quarks and gluons, often referred to as quark/gluon tagging, plays an important role in various analyses performed at the Large Hadron Collider, as Standard Model measurements and searches for new particles decaying to quarks often rely on suppressing a large gluon-induced background. This paper describes the measurement of the efficiencies of quark/gluon taggers developed within the ATLAS Collaboration, using √s=13 TeV proton–proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb-1 collected by the ATLAS experiment. Two taggers with high performances in rejecting jets from gluon over jets from quarks are studied: one tagger is based on requirements on the number of inner-detector tracks associated with the jet, and the other combines several jet substructure observables using a boosted decision tree. A method is established to determine the quark/gluon fraction in data, by using quark/gluon-enriched subsamples defined by the jet pseudorapidity. Differences in tagging efficiency between data and simulation are provided for jets with transverse momentum between 500 GeV and 2 TeV and for multiple tagger working points

Search for resonant production of dark quarks in the dijet final state with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a search for a new Z′ resonance decaying into a pair of dark quarks which hadronise into dark hadrons before promptly decaying back as Standard Model particles. This analysis is based on proton-proton collision data recorded at $$\sqrt{s}$$ s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider between 2015 and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. After selecting events containing large-radius jets with high track multiplicity, the invariant mass distribution of the two highest-transverse-momentum jets is scanned to look for an excess above a data-driven estimate of the Standard Model multijet background. No significant excess of events is observed and the results are thus used to set 95% confidence-level upper limits on the production cross-section times branching ratio of the Z′ to dark quarks as a function of the Z′ mass for various dark-quark scenarios

Electron and photon energy calibration with the ATLAS detector using LHC Run 2 data

This paper presents the electron and photon energy calibration obtained with the ATLAS detector using 140 fb-1 of LHC proton-proton collision data recorded at √(s) = 13 TeV between 2015 and 2018. Methods for the measurement of electron and photon energies are outlined, along with the current knowledge of the passive material in front of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter. The energy calibration steps are discussed in detail, with emphasis on the improvements introduced in this paper. The absolute energy scale is set using a large sample of Z-boson decays into electron-positron pairs, and its residual dependence on the electron energy is used for the first time to further constrain systematic uncertainties. The achieved calibration uncertainties are typically 0.05% for electrons from resonant Z-boson decays, 0.4% at ET ∼ 10 GeV, and 0.3% at ET ∼ 1 TeV; for photons at ET ∼ 60 GeV, they are 0.2% on average. This is more than twice as precise as the previous calibration. The new energy calibration is validated using J/ψ → ee and radiative Z-boson decays

Measurement and interpretation of same-sign W boson pair production in association with two jets in pp collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the measurement of fducial and diferential cross sections for both the inclusive and electroweak production of a same-sign W-boson pair in association with two jets (W±W±jj) using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is performed by selecting two same-charge leptons, electron or muon, and at least two jets with large invariant mass and a large rapidity diference. The measured fducial cross sections for electroweak and inclusive W±W±jj production are 2.92 ± 0.22 (stat.) ± 0.19 (syst.)fb and 3.38±0.22 (stat.)±0.19 (syst.)fb, respectively, in agreement with Standard Model predictions. The measurements are used to constrain anomalous quartic gauge couplings by extracting 95% confdence level intervals on dimension-8 operators. A search for doubly charged Higgs bosons H±± that are produced in vector-boson fusion processes and decay into a same-sign W boson pair is performed. The largest deviation from the Standard Model occurs for an H±± mass near 450 GeV, with a global signifcance of 2.5 standard deviations

Studies of new Higgs boson interactions through nonresonant HH production in the b¯bγγ fnal state in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for nonresonant Higgs boson pair production in the b ¯bγγ fnal state is performed using 140 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. This analysis supersedes and expands upon the previous nonresonant ATLAS results in this fnal state based on the same data sample. The analysis strategy is optimised to probe anomalous values not only of the Higgs (H) boson self-coupling modifer κλ but also of the quartic HHV V (V = W, Z) coupling modifer κ2V . No signifcant excess above the expected background from Standard Model processes is observed. An observed upper limit µHH < 4.0 is set at 95% confdence level on the Higgs boson pair production cross-section normalised to its Standard Model prediction. The 95% confdence intervals for the coupling modifers are −1.4 < κλ < 6.9 and −0.5 < κ2V < 2.7, assuming all other Higgs boson couplings except the one under study are fxed to the Standard Model predictions. The results are interpreted in the Standard Model efective feld theory and Higgs efective feld theory frameworks in terms of constraints on the couplings of anomalous Higgs boson (self-)interactions

Model-independent search for the presence of new physics in events including H → γγ with s \sqrt{s} = 13 TeV pp data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Abstract A model-independent search for new physics leading to final states containing a Higgs boson, with a mass of 125.09 GeV, decaying to a pair of photons is performed with 139 fb−1 of s $$\sqrt{s}$$ = 13 TeV pp collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. This search examines 22 final states categorized by the objects that are produced in association with the Higgs boson. These objects include isolated electrons or muons, hadronically decaying τ-leptons, additional photons, missing transverse momentum, and hadronic jets, as well as jets that are tagged as containing a b-hadron. No significant excesses above Standard Model expectations are observed and limits on the production cross section at 95% confidence level are set. Detector efficiencies are reported for all 22 signal regions, which can be used to convert detector-level cross-section limits reported in this paper to particle-level cross-section constraints

Combination of searches for invisible decays of the Higgs boson using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data at root s=13 TeV collected with the ATLAS experiment

Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the production of dark matter particles at the LHC. Sufficiently light dark matter particles may be produced in decays of the Higgs boson that would appear invisible to the detector. This Letter presents a statistical combination of searches for H→invisible decays where multiple production modes of the Standard Model Higgs boson are considered. These searches are performed with the ATLAS detector using 139 fb−1of proton–proton collisions at a centre–of–mass energy of √s=13TeV at the LHC. In combination with the results at √s=7TeV and 8TeV, an upper limit on the H→invisible branching ratio of 0.107 (0.077) at the 95% confidence level is observed (expected). These results are also interpreted in the context of models where the 125GeV Higgs boson acts as a portal to dark matter, and limits are set on the scattering cross-section of weakly interacting massive particles and nucleons