Abstract: Two searches for new phenomena in final states containing a same-flavour opposite-sign lepton (electron or muon) pair, jets, and large missing transverse momentum are presented. These searches make use of proton-proton collision data, collected during 2015 and 2016 at a centre-of-mass energy root s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the large hadron collider, which correspond to an integrated luminosity of 14.7 fb(-1). Both searches target the pair production of supersymmetric particles, squarks or gluinos, which decay to final states containing a same-flavour opposite-sign lepton pair via one of two mechanisms: a leptonically decaying Z boson in the final state, leading to a peak in the dilepton invariant-mass distribution around the Z boson mass; and decays of neutralinos (e.g.. (chi) over tilde (0)(2) -> l(+)l(-1)(chi) over tilde (0)(1)), yielding a kinematic endpoint in the dilepton invariant-mass spectrum. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectation. Results are interpreted in simplified models of gluino-pair (squark-pair) production, and provide sensitivity to gluinos (squarks) with masses as large as 1.70 TeV (980 GeV).

Abstract: A measurement of the phase difference between the short- and long-distance contributions to the decay is performed by analysing the dimuon mass distribution. The analysis is based on pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 collected by the LHCb experiment in 2011 and 2012. The long-distance contribution to the decay is modelled as a sum of relativistic Breit-Wigner amplitudes representing different vector meson resonances decaying to muon pairs, each with their own magnitude and phase. The measured phases of the and resonances are such that the interference with the short-distance component in dimuon mass regions far from their pole masses is small. In addition, constraints are placed on the Wilson coefficients, and , and the branching fraction of the short-distance component is measured.

Abstract: The hidden-charm pentaquark P-c(4450) observed recently by the LHCb collaboration may be of molecular nature, as advocated by some unitary approaches that also predict pentaquark partners in the strangeness S = -1 sector. In this work we argue that a hidden-charm strange pentaquark could be seen from the decay of the Lambda b, just as in the case of the non-strange P-c(4450), but looking into the J/psi eta Lambda decay mode and forming the invariant mass spectrum of J/psi Lambda pairs. In the model presented here, which assumes a standard weak decay topology and incorporates the hadronization process and final-state interaction effects, we find the J/psi eta Lambda final states to be populated with similar strength as the J/psi K- p states employed for the observation of the non-strange pentaquark. This makes the Lambda b -> J/psi eta Lambda decay to be an interesting process to observe a possible strange partner of the P-c(4450). We study the dependence of the J/psi Lambda mass spectra on various model ingredients and on the unknown properties of the strange pentaquark.

Abstract: We consider a five-dimensional model with geometry M = M-4 x S-1, with compactification radius R. The Standard Model particles are localized on a brane located at y = 0, with identical branes localized at different points in the extra dimension. Objects located on our brane can orbit around objects located on a brane at a distance d = y/R, with an orbit and a period significantly different from the standard Newtonian ones. We study the kinematical properties of the orbits, finding that it is possible to distinguish one motion from the other in a large region of the initial conditions parameter space. This is a warm-up to study if a SM-like mass distribution on one (or more) distant brane(s) may represent a possible dark matter candidate. After using the same technique to the study of orbits of objects lying on the same brane (d = 0), we apply this method to the detection of generic deviations from the inverse-square Newton law. We propose a possible experimental setup to look for departures from Newtonian motion in the micro-world, finding that an order of magnitude improvement on present bounds can be attained at the 95% CL under reasonable assumptions.

Abstract: In a previous work we presented a theoretical analysis of the Lambda(b) -> J/psi K- p reaction based on which a recent experiment by the LHCb collaboration at CERN claimed the existence of two hidden charm pentaquarks, P-c(4380)(+) and P-c(4450)(+). In that work we focused only on the Lambda(1405) and P-c(4450)(+) signals and discussed the possible explanation of this pentaquark state within the picture of a dynamical meson-baryon molecule made up mostly from (D) over bar*Sigma(c) and (D) over bar*Sigma(c)* components. In the present work we improve upon the previous one by considering the total K- p and J/psi p data including all the relevant resonances contributing to the spectra, and discuss the possible nature of both P-c(4380)(+) and P-c(4450)(+). We also discuss several important topics, like the effect of the contact term in the reaction, the viability of reproducing the data without the P-c(4380)(+) and the possible quantum number assignment to these pentaquarks.