Abstract: This Letter presents the measurement of differential cross sections of isolated prompt photons produced in association with a b-jet or a c-jet. These final states provide sensitivity to the heavy-flavour content of the proton and aspects related to the modelling of heavy-flavour quarks in perturbative QCD. The measurement uses proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2012 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to 20.2 fb(-1). The differential cross sections are measured for each jet flavour with respect to the transverse energy of the leading photon in two photon pseudorapidity regions: vertical bar eta(gamma)vertical bar < 1.37 and 1.56 < vertical bar eta(gamma)vertical bar < 2.37. The measurement covers photon transverse energies 25 < E-T(gamma) < 400 GeV and 25 < E-T(gamma) < 350 GeV respectively for the two vertical bar eta(gamma)vertical bar regions. For each jet flavour, the ratio of the cross sections in the two vertical bar eta(gamma)vertical bar regions is also measured. The measurement is corrected for detector effects and compared to leading-order and next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations, based on various treatments and assumptions about the heavy-flavour content of the proton. Overall, the predictions agree well with the measurement, but some deviations are observed at high photon transverse energies. The total uncertainty in the measurement ranges between 13% and 66%, while the central gamma+b measurement exhibits the smallest uncertainty, ranging from 13% to 27%, which is comparable to the precision of the theoretical predictions.

Abstract: This Letter presents a search for the production of new heavy resonances decaying into a Higgs boson and a photon using proton-proton collision data at root s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1). The analysis is performed by reconstructing hadronically decaying Higgs boson (H -> b (b) over bar) candidates as single large-radius jets. A novel algorithm using information about the jet constituents in the center-of-mass frame of the jet is implemented to identify the two b quarks in the single jet. No significant excess of events is observed above the expected background. Upper limits are set on the production cross-section times branching fraction for narrow spin-1 resonances decaying into a Higgs boson and a photon in the resonance mass range from 0.7 to 4 TeV, cross-section times branching fractions are excluded between 11.6 fb and 0.11 fb at a 95% confidence level.

Abstract: This Letter presents a search for new light resonances decaying to pairs of quarks and produced in association with a high-p(T) photon or jet. The dataset consists of proton-proton collisions with an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1) at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Resonance candidates are identified as massive large-radius jets with substructure consistent with a particle decaying into a quark pair. The mass spectrum of the candidates is examined for local excesses above background. No evidence of a new resonance is observed in the data, which are used to exclude the production of a lepto-phobic axial-vector Z' boson. (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.

Abstract: This Letter presents a search for exotic decays of the Higgs boson to a pair of new (pseudo) scalar particles, H -> aa, where the a particle has a mass in the range 20-60 GeV, and where one of the a bosons decays into a pair of photons and the other to a pair of gluons. The search is performed in event samples enhanced in vector-boson fusion Higgs boson production by requiring two jets with large invariant mass in addition to the Higgs boson candidate decay products. The analysis is based on the full dataset of pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV recorded in 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.7 fb(-1). The data are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions and an upper limit at the 95% confidence level is placed on the production cross section times the branching ratio for the decay H -> aa -> gamma gamma gg. This limit ranges from 3.1 pb to 9.0 pb depending on the mass of the a boson.

Abstract: This Letter presents a measurement of gamma gamma -> mu(+)mu(-)- production in Pb + Pb collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at root s(NN) = 5.02 TeV with an integrated luminosity of 0.49 nb(-1). The azimuthal angle and transverse momentum correlations between the muons are measured as a function of collision centrality. The muon pairs are produced from gamma gamma through the interaction of the large electromagnetic fields of the nuclei. The contribution from background sources of muon pairs is removed using a template fit method. In peripheral collisions, the muons exhibit a strong back-to-back correlation consistent with previous measurements of muon pair production in ultraperipheral collisions. The angular correlations are observed to broaden significantly in central collisions. The modifications arc qualitatively consistent with rescattering of the muons while passing through the hot matter produced in the collision.