Abstract: A search for dark matter in association with a Higgs boson decaying to two photons is presented. This study is based on data collected with the ATLAS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess over the expected background is observed. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the visible cross section for beyond the Standard Model physics processes, and the production cross section times branching fraction of the Standard Model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in association with missing transverse momentum in three different benchmark models. Limits at 95% confidence level are also set on the observed signal in two-dimensional mass planes. Additionally, the results are interpreted in terms of 90% confidence-level limits on the dark-matternucleon scattering cross section, as a function of the dark-matter particle mass, for a spin-independent scenario.

Abstract: We study the behavior of strongly interacting matter under a uniform intense external magnetic field in the context of nonlocal extensions of the Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. A detailed description of the formalism is presented, considering the cases of zero and finite temperature. In particular, we analyze the effect of the magnetic field on the chiral restoration and deconfinement transitions, which are found to occur at approximately the same critical temperatures. Our results show that these models offer a natural framework to account for the phenomenon of inverse magnetic catalysis found in lattice QCD calculations.

Abstract: The results of a search for squarks and gluinos in final states with an isolated electron or muon, multiple jets and large missing transverse momentum using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV are presented. The data set used was recorded during 2015 and 2016 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1). No significant excess beyond the expected background is found. Exclusion limits at 95% confidence level are set in a number of supersymmetric scenarios, reaching masses up to 2.1 TeV for gluino pair production and up to 1.25 TeV for squark pair production.

Abstract: We study the impact of assumptions about neutrino properties on the estimation of inflationary parameters from cosmological data, with a specific focus on the allowed contours in the n(s)/r plane, where n(s) is the scalar spectral index and r is the tensor-to-scalar ratio. We study the following neutrino properties: (i) the total neutrino mass M-i = Sigma(i)m(i) (where the index i = 1, 2, 3 runs over the three neutrino mass eigenstates); (ii) the number of relativistic degrees of freedom N-eff at the time of recombination; and (iii) the neutrino hierarchy. Whereas previous literature assumed three degenerate neutrino masses or two massless neutrino species (approximations that clearly do not match neutrino oscillation data), we study the cases of normal and inverted hierarchy. Our basic result is that these three neutrino properties induce < 1 sigma shift of the probability contours in the n(s)/r plane with both current or upcoming data. We find that the choice of neutrino hierarchy (normal, inverted, or degenerate) has a negligible impact. However, the minimal cutoff on the total neutrino mass M-v,M-min = 0 that accompanies previous works using the degenerate hierarchy does introduce biases in the n(s)/r plane and should be replaced by M-v,M-min = 0.059 eV as required by oscillation data. Using current cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from Planck and Bicep/Keck, marginalizing over the total neutrino mass M-v and over r can lead to a shift in the mean value of ns of similar to 0.3 sigma toward lower values. However, once baryon acoustic oscillation measurements are included, the standard contours in the n(s)/r plane are basically reproduced. Larger shifts of the contours in the n(s)/r plane (up to 0.8 sigma) arise for nonstandard values of N-eff. We also provide forecasts for the future CMB experiments Cosmic Origins Explorer (COrE, satellite) and Stage-IV (ground-based) and show that the incomplete knowledge of neutrino properties, taken into account by a marginalization over M-v, could induce a shift of similar to 0.4 sigma toward lower values in the determination of ns (or a similar to 0.8 sigma shift if one marginalizes over N-eff). Comparison to specific inflationary models is shown. Imperfect knowledge of neutrino properties must be taken into account properly, given the desired precision in determining whether or not inflationary models match the future data.

Abstract: We study the strange vector meson (K*, (K) over bar*) dynamics in relativistic heavy-ion collisions based on the microscopic parton-hadron-string dynamics (PHSD) transport approach which incorporates partonic and hadronic degrees of freedom, a phase transition from hadronic to partonic matter-quark-gluon-plasma (QGP)-and a dynamical hadronization of quarks and antiquarks as well as final hadronic interactions. We investigate the role of in-medium effects on the K*, (K) over bar* meson dynamics by employing Breit-Wigner spectral functions for the K* with self-energies obtained from a self-consistent coupled-channelG-matrix approach. Furthermore, we confront the PHSD calculations with experimental data for p + p, Cu + Cu, and Au + Au collisions at energies up to root s(NN) = 200 GeV. Our analysis shows that, at relativistic energies, most of the final K* (observed experimentally) are produced during the late hadronic phase, dominantly by the K + pi -> K* channel, such that the fraction of the K* from the QGP is small and can hardly be reconstructed from the final observables. The influence of the in-medium effects on the K* dynamics at energies typical of the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is rather modest due to their dominant production at low baryon densities (but high meson densities); however, it increases with decreasing beam energy. Moreover, we find that the additional cut on the invariant-mass region of the K* further influences the shape and the height of the final spectra. This imposes severe constraints on the interpretation of the experimental results.