Abstract: This paper presents a measurement of quantities related to the formation of jets from high-energy quarks and gluons (fragmentation). Jets with transverse momentum 100 GeV < p(T) < 2.5 TeV and pseudorapidity vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2.1 from an integrated luminosity of 33 fb(-1) of root s = 13 TeV proton-proton collisions are reconstructed with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Charged-particle tracks with p(T) > 500 MeV and vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2.5 are used to probe the detailed structure of the jet. The fragmentation properties of the more forward and the more central of the two leading jets from each event are studied. The data are unfolded to correct for detector resolution and acceptance effects. Comparisons with parton shower Monte Carlo generators indicate that existing models provide a reasonable description of the data across a wide range of phase space, but there are also significant differences. Furthermore, the data are interpreted in the context of quark- and gluon-initiated jets by exploiting the rapidity dependence of the jet flavor fraction. A first measurement of the charged-particle multiplicity using model-independent jet labels (topic modeling) provides a promising alternative to traditional quark and gluon extractions using input from simulation. The simulations provide a reasonable description of the quark-like data across the jet p(T) range presented in-this measurement, but the gluon-like data have systematically fewer charged particles than the simulation.

Abstract: This paper presents a measurement of forward-forward and forward-central dijet azimuthal angular correlations and conditional yields in proton-proton (pp) and proton-lead (p + Pb) collisions as a probe of the nuclear gluon density in regions where the fraction of the average momentum per nucleon carried by the parton entering the hard scattering is low. In these regions, gluon saturation can modify the rapidly increasing parton distribution function of the gluon. The analysis utilizes 25 pb(-1) of pp data and 360 μb(-1) of p + Pb data, both at root S-NN = 5.02 TeV, collected in 2015 and 2016, respectively, with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is performed in the center-of-mass frame of the nucleon-nucleon system in the rapidity range between -4.0 and 4.0 using the two highest transverse-momentum jets in each event, with the highest transverse-momentum jet restricted to the forward rapidity range. No significant broadening of azimuthal angular correlations is observed for forward-forward or forward-central dijets in p + Pb compared to pp collisions. For forward-forward jet pairs in the proton-going direction, the ratio of conditional yields in p + Pb collisions to those in pp collisions is suppressed by approximately 20%, with no significant dependence on the transverse momentum of the dijet system. No modification of conditional yields is observed for forward-central dijets.

Abstract: This paper presents a dedicated search for exotic decays of the Higgs boson to a pair of new spin-zero particles, H -> aa, where the particle a decays to b-quarks and has a mass in the range of 20-60 GeV. The search is performed in events where the Higgs boson is produced in associationwith aW boson, giving rise to a signature of a lepton (electron or muon), missing transverse momentum, and multiple jets from b-quark decays. The analysis is based on the full dataset of pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV recorded in 2015 by theATLAS detector at theCERNLargeHadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb(-1). No significant excess of events above the Standard Model prediction is observed, and a 95% confidence-level upper limit is derived for the product of the production cross section for pp -> WH times the branching ratio for the decay H -> aa -> 4b. The upper limit ranges from 6.2 pb for an a-boson mass m(a) = 20 GeV to 1.5 pb for m(a) = 60 GeV.

Abstract: This paper describes the measurements of flow harmonics v(2)-v(6) in 3 μb(-1) of Xe Xe collisions at root S-NN = 5.44 TeV performed using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Measurements of the centrality, multiplicity, and p(T) dependence of the v(n) obtained using two-particle correlations and the scalar product technique are presented. The measurements are also performed using a template-fit procedure, which was developed to remove nonflow correlations in small collision systems. This nonflow removal is shown to have a significant influence on the measured v(n) at high p(T), especially in peripheral events. Comparisons of the measured v(n) with measurements in Pb + Pb collisions and p + Pb collisions at root S-NN = 5.02 TeV are also presented. The v(n) values in Xe + Xe collisions are observed to be larger than those in Pb + Pb collisions for n = 2, 3, and 4 in the most central events. However, with decreasing centrality or increasing harmonic order n, the v(n) values in Xe + Xe collisions become smaller than those in Pb + Pb collisions. The v(n) in Xe + Xe and Pb + Pb collisions are also compared as a function of the mean number of participating nucleons, < N-part >, and the measured charged-particle multiplicity in the detector. The v(3) values in Xe + Xe and Pb + Pb collisions are observed to be similar at the same < N-part > or multiplicity, but the other harmonics are significantly different. The ratios of the measured v(n) in Xe + Xe and Pb + Pb collisions, as a function of centrality, are also compared to theoretical calculations.

Abstract: This paper describes the concept, technical realisation and validation of a largely data-driven method to model events with Z -> tau tau decays. In Z -> μμevents selected from proton-proton collision data recorded at root s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2012, the Z decay muons are replaced by tau leptons from simulated Z -> tau tau decays at the level of reconstructed tracks and calorimeter cells. The tau lepton kinematics are derived from the kinematics of the original muons. Thus, only the well-understood decays of the Z boson and tau leptons as well as the detector response to the tau decay products are obtained from simulation. All other aspects of the event, such as the Z boson and jet kinematics as well as effects from multiple interactions, are given by the actual data. This so-called tau-embedding method is particularly relevant for Higgs boson searches and analyses in tau tau final states, where Z -> tau tau decays constitute a large irreducible background that cannot be obtained directly from data control samples. In this paper, the relevant concepts are discussed based on the implementation used in the ATLAS Standard Model H -> tau tau analysis of the full datataset recorded during 2011 and 2012.