Abstract: We present charged-particle distributions sensitive to the underlying event, measured by the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, in low-luminosity Large Hadron Collider fills corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.6 nb-1. The distributions were constructed using charged particles with absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.5 and with transverse momentum greater than 500 MeV, in events with at least one such charged particle with transverse momentum above 1 GeV. These distributions characterise the angular distribution of energy and particle flows with respect to the charged particle with highest transverse momentum, as a function of both that momentum and of charged-particle multiplicity. The results have been corrected for detector effects and are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generators, experimentally establishing the level of underlying-event activity at LHC Run 2 energies and providing inputs for the development of event generator modelling. The current models in use for UE modelling typically describe this data to 5% accuracy, compared with data uncertainties of less than 1%.

Abstract: A search for direct top squark pair production resulting in events with either a same-flavour opposite-sign dilepton pair with invariant mass compatible with a Z boson or a pair of jets compatible with a Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson (h) is presented. Requirements on the missing transverse momentum, together with additional selections on leptons, jets, jets identified as originating from b-quarks are imposed to target the other decay products of the top squark pair. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data at root s = 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 20152016, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1). No excess is observed in the data with respect to the SM predictions. The results are interpreted in two sets of models. In the first set, direct production of pairs of lighter top squarks ((t) over tilde (1)) with long decay chains involving Z or Higgs bosons is considered. The second set includes direct pair production of the heavier top squark pairs ((t) over tilde (2)) decaying via (t) over tilde (2) -> Z (t) over tilde (1) or (t) over tilde (2) -> h (t) over tilde (1). The results exclude at 95% confidence level (t) over tilde (2) and (t) over tilde (1) masses up to about 800 GeV, extending the exclusion region of supersymmetric parameter space covered by previous LHC searches.

Abstract: A measurement of the splitting scales occuring in the k(t) jet-clustering algorithm is presented for final states containing a Z boson. The measurement is done using 20.2 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2012. The measurement is based on charged-particle track information, which is measured with excellent precision in the p(T) region relevant for the transition between the perturbative and the non-perturbative regimes. The data distributions are corrected for detector effects, and are found to deviate from state-of-the-art predictions in various regions of the observables.

Abstract: A search for new phenomena in final states characterized by high jet multiplicity, an isolated lepton ( electron or muon) and either zero or at least three b-tagged jets is presented. The search uses 36.1 fb(-1) of root s = 13TeV proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2016. The dominant sources of background are estimated using parameterized extrapolations, based on observables at medium jet multiplicity, to predict the b-tagged jet multiplicity distribution at the higher jet multiplicities used in the search. No significant excess over the Standard Model expectation is observed and 95% confidence-level limits are extracted constraining four simplified models of R-parity-violating supersymmetry that feature either gluino or top-squark pair production. The exclusion limits reach as high as 2.1TeV in gluino mass and 1.2TeV in top-squark mass in the models considered. In addition, an upper limit is set on the cross-section for Standard Model t (t) over bart (t) over bar production of 60 fb (6.5 x the Standard Model prediction) at 95% confidence level. Finally, model-independent limits are set on the contribution from new phenomena to the signal-region yields.

Abstract: This article presents searches for the Z gamma decay of the Higgs boson and for narrow high-mass resonances decaying to Z gamma, exploiting Z boson decays to pairs of electrons or muons. The data analysis uses 36.1 fb(-1) of pp collisions at root s = 13 recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The data are found to be consistent with the expected Standard Model background. The observed (expected – assuming Standard Model pp -> H -> Z gamma production and decay) upper limit on the production cross section times the branching ratio for pp -> H -> Z gamma is 6.6. (5.2) times the Standard Model prediction at the 95% confidence level for a Higgs boson mass of 125.09 GeV. In addition, upper limits are set on the production cross section times the branching ratio as a function of the mass of a narrow resonance between 250 GeV and 2.4 TeV, assuming spin-0 resonances produced via gluon-gluon fusion, and spin-2 resonances produced via gluon-gluon or quark-antiquark initial states. For high-mass spin-0 resonances, the observed (expected) limits vary between 88 fb (61 fb) and 2.8 fb (2.7 fb) for the mass range from 250 GeV to 2.4 TeV at the 95% confidence level.