Abstract: The MoEDAL experiment is designed to search for magnetic monopoles and other highly-ionising particles produced in high-energy collisions at the LHC. The largely passive MoEDAL detector, deployed at Interaction Point 8 on the LHC ring, relies on two dedicated direct detection techniques. The first technique is based on stacks of nuclear-track detectors with surface area similar to 18 m(2), sensitive to particle ionisation exceeding a high threshold. These detectors are analysed offline by optical scanning microscopes. The second technique is based on the trapping of charged particles in an array of roughly 800 kg of aluminium samples. These samples are monitored offline for the presence of trapped magnetic charge at a remote superconducting magnetometer facility. We present here the results of a search for magnetic monopoles using a 160 kg prototype MoEDAL trapping detector exposed to 8TeV proton-proton collisions at the LHC, for an integrated luminosity of 0.75 fb(-1). No magnetic charge exceeding 0.5g(D) (where g(D) is the Dirac magnetic charge) is measured in any of the exposed samples, allowing limits to be placed on monopole production in the mass range 100 GeV <= m <= 3500 GeV. Model-independent cross-section limits are presented in fiducial regions of monopole energy and direction for 1g(D) <= vertical bar g vertical bar <= 6g(D), and model-dependent cross-section limits are obtained for Drell-Yan pair production of spin-1/2 and spin-0 monopoles for 1g(D) <= vertical bar g vertical bar <= 4g(D). Under the assumption of Drell-Yan cross sections, mass limits are derived for vertical bar g vertical bar = 2g(D) and vertical bar g vertical bar = 3g(D) for the first time at the LHC, surpassing the results from previous collider experiments.

Abstract: The inclusive D-s(+/-) production asymmetry is measured in pp collisions collected by the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of root s = 7 and 8 TeV. Promptly produced D-s(+/-) mesons are used, which decay as D-s(+/-) -> phi pi(+/-), with phi -> K+ K-. The measurement is performed in bins of transverse momentum, pT, and rapidity, y, covering the range 2.5 < pT < 25 : 0 GeV/c and 2.0 < y < 4.5. No kinematic dependence is observed. Evidence of nonzero D-s(+/-) production asymmetry is found with a significance of 3.3 standard deviations.

Abstract: The inclusive b (b) over bar- and c (c) over bar -dijet production cross-sections in the forward region of pp collisions are measured using a data sample collected with the LHCb detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 13TeV in 2016. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.6 fb(-1). Differential cross-sections are measured as a function of the transverse momentum and of the pseudorapidity of the leading jet, of the rapidity difference between the jets, and of the dijet invariant mass. A fiducial region for the measurement is defined by requiring that the two jets originating from the two b or c quarks are emitted with transverse momentum greater than 20 GeV/c, pseudorapidity in the range 2.2 < eta < 4.2, and with a difference in the azimuthal angle between the two jets greater than 1.5. The integrated b (b) over bar -dijet cross-section is measured to be 53.0 +/- 9.7 nb, and the total c (c) over bar -dijet cross-section is measured to be 73 +/- 16 nb. The ratio between c (c) over bar- and b (b) over bar -dijet cross-sections is also measured and found to be 1.37 +/- 0.27. The results are in agreement with theoretical predictions at next-to-leading order.