Abstract: This Letter reports the observation of WZ gamma production and a measurement of its cross section using 140.1 +/- 1.2 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data recorded at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV by the bosons decaying leptonically, pp -> WZ gamma -> l'(perpendicular to)nu l(+) l(-)gamma (l(')(+) = e, mu), is measured in a fiducial phasespace region defined such that the leptons and the photon have high transverse momentum and the photon is isolated. The cross section is found to be 2.01 +/- 0.30(stat) +/- 0.16(syst) fb. The corresponding standard model predicted cross section calculated at next-to-leading order in perturbative quantum chromodynamics and at leading order in the electroweak coupling constant is 1.50 +/- 0.06 fb. The observed significance of the WZ gamma signal is 6.3 sigma, compared with an expected significance of 5.0 sigma.

Abstract: This Letter reports the observation of tau-lepton-pair production in ultraperipheral lead-lead collisions Pb + Pb -> Pb(gamma gamma -> tau tau)Pb and constraints on the tau-lepton anomalous magnetic moment a(tau). The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.44 nb(-1) of LHC Pb + Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-s = 5.02 TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment in 2018. Selected events contain one muon from a t-lepton decay, an electron or charged-particle track(s) from the other tau-lepton decay, little additional central-detector activity, and no forward neutrons. The gamma gamma -> tau tau process is observed in Pb + Pb collisions with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations and a signal strength of mu(tau tau) = 1.03(-0.05)(+0.06) assuming the standard model value for a(tau). To measure a(tau), a template fit to the muon transverse-momentum distribution from tau-lepton candidates is performed, using a dimuon (gamma gamma -> μmu) control sample to constrain systematic uncertainties. The observed 95% confidence-level interval for a(tau) is -0.057 < a(tau) < 0.024.

Abstract: This letter reports the observation of photon-induced production of W-boson pairs, gamma gamma -> WW. The analysis uses 139 fb(-1) of LHC proton-proton collision data taken at root s = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment during the years 2015-2018. The measurement is performed selecting one electron and one muon, corresponding to the decay of the diboson system as WW -> e(+/-)nu mu(-/+)nu final state. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with a significance of well above 5 standard deviations consistent with the expectation from Monte Carlo simulation. A cross section for the gamma gamma -> WW process of 3.13 +/- 0.31(stat.) +/- 0.28(syst.) fb is measured in a fiducial volume close to the acceptance of the detector, by requiring an electron and a muon of opposite signs with large dilepton transverse momentum and exactly zero additional charged particles. This is found to be in agreement with the Standard Model prediction.

Abstract: This Letter reports on a search for off-shell production of the Higgs boson using 139 fb(-1) of pp collision data at root s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The signature is a pair of Z bosons, with contributions from both the production and subsequent decay of a virtual Higgs boson and the interference of that process with other processes. The two observable final states are ZZ -> 4l and Z Z -> 2l2 nu with l = e or mu. In the ZZ -> 4l final state, a dense Neural Network is used to enhance analysis sensitivity with respect to matrix element-based discrimination. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with an observed (expected) significance of 3.3 (2.2) standard deviations, representing experimental evidence for off-shell Higgs boson production. Assuming that no new particles enter the production of the virtual Higgs boson, its total width can be deduced from the measurement of its off-shell production cross-section. The measured total width of the Higgs boson is 4.5(-2.5)(+3.3) MeV, and the observed (expected) upper limit on the total width is found to be 10.5 (10.9) MeV at 95% confidence level.

Abstract: This Letter presents the measurement of the fiducial and differential cross-sections of the electroweak production of a Zγ pair in association with two jets. The analysis uses 140 fb−1 of LHC proton-proton collision data taken at s√=13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector during the years 2015-2018. Events with a Z boson candidate decaying into either an e+e− or μ+μ− pair, a photon and two jets are selected. The electroweak component is extracted by requiring a large dijet invariant mass and a large rapidity gap between the two jets and is measured with an observed and expected significance well above five standard deviations. The fiducial pp→Zγjj cross-section for the electroweak production is measured to be 3.6 ± 0.5 fb. The total fiducial cross-section that also includes contributions where the jets arise from strong interactions is measured to be 16.8+2.0−1.8 fb. The results are consistent with the Standard Model predictions. Differential cross-sections are also measured using the same events and are compared with parton-shower Monte Carlo simulations. Good agreement is observed between data and predictions.