ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for invisible decays of a Higgs boson using vector-boson fusion in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 172–44pp.
Abstract: A search for a Higgs boson produced via vector-boson fusion and decaying into invisible particles is presented, using 20.3 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 8TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. For a Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, assuming the Standard Model production cross section, an upper bound of 0.28 is set on the branching fraction of H -> invisible at 95% confidence level, where the expected upper limit is 0.31. The results are interpreted in models of Higgs-portal dark matter where the branching fraction limit is converted into upper bounds on the dark-matter-nucleon scattering cross section as a function of the dark-matter particle mass, and compared to results from the direct dark-matter detection experiments.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Constraints on non-Standard Model Higgs boson interactions in an effective Lagrangian using differential cross sections measured in the H ->gamma gamma decay channel at root s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 753, 69–85.
Abstract: The strength and tensor structure of the Higgs boson's interactions are investigated using an effective Lagrangian, which introduces additional CP-even and CP-odd interactions that lead to changes in the kinematic properties of the Higgs boson and associated jet spectra with respect to the Standard Model. The parameters of the effective Lagrangian are probed using a fit to five differential cross sections previously measured by the ATLAS experiment in the H ->gamma gamma decay channel with an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1) at root s= 8 TeV. Inorder to perform a simultaneous fit to the five distributions, the statistical correlations between them are determined by re-analysing the H ->gamma gamma candidate events in the proton-proton collision data. No significant deviations from the Standard Model predictions are observed and limits on the effective Lagrangian parameters are derived. The statistical correlations are made publicly available to allow for future analysis of theories with non-Standard Model interactions.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for a high-mass Higgs boson decaying to a W boson pair in pp collisions at root s=8TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 032–66pp.
Abstract: A search for a high-mass Higgs boson H is performed in the H -> WW -> l nu l nu and H -> WW -> l nu qq decay channels using pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1) collected at root s = 8TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. No evidence of a high-mass Higgs boson is found. Limits on sigma(H) x BR(H -> WW) as a function of the Higgs boson mass m(H) are determined in three different scenarios: one in which the heavy Higgs boson has a narrow width compared to the experimental resolution, one for a width increasing with the boson mass and modeled by the complex-pole scheme following the same behavior as in the Standard Model, and one for intermediate widths. The upper range of the search is m(H) = 1500 GeV for the narrow-width scenario and m(H) = 1000 GeV for the other two scenarios. The lower edge of the search range is 200{300 GeV and depends on the analysis channel and search scenario. For each signal interpretation, individual and combined limits from the two WW decay channels are presented. At m(H) = 1500 GeV, the highest-mass point tested, sigma(H) x BR(H -> WW) for a narrow-width Higgs boson is constrained to be less than 22 fb and 6.6 fb at 95% CL for the gluon fusion and vector-boson fusion production modes, respectively.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for magnetic monopoles and stable particles with high electric charges in 8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. D, 93(5), 052009–25pp.
Abstract: A search for highly ionizing particles produced in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV center-of-mass energy is performed by the ATLAS Collaboration at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The data set used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 7.0 fb(-1). A customized trigger significantly increases the sensitivity, permitting a search for such particles with charges and energies beyond what was previously accessible. No events were found in the signal region, leading to production cross section upper limits in the mass range 200-2500 GeV for magnetic monopoles with magnetic charge in the range 0.5g(D) < vertical bar g vertical bar < 2.0g(D), where g(D) is the Dirac charge, and for stable particles with electric charge in the range 10 < vertical bar z vertical bar < 60. Model-dependent limits are presented in given pair-production scenarios, and model-independent limits are presented in fiducial regions of particle energy and pseudorapidity.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Measurement of the dependence of transverse energy production at large pseudorapidity on the hard-scattering kinematics of proton-proton collisions at root s=2.76 TeV with ATLAS. Phys. Lett. B, 756, 10–28.
Abstract: The relationship between jet production in the central region and the underlying-event activity in a pseudorapidity-separated region is studied in 4.0 pb(-1) of root s = 2.76 TeV pp collision data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The underlying event is characterised through measurements of the average value of the sum of the transverse energy at large pseudorapidity downstream of one of the protons, which are reported here as a function of hard-scattering kinematic variables. The hard scattering is characterised by the average transverse momentum and pseudorapidity of the two highest transverse momentum jets in the event. The dijet kinematics are used to estimate, on an event-by-event basis, the scaled longitudinal momenta of the hard-scattered partons in the target and projectile beam-protons moving toward and away from the region measuring transverse energy, respectively. Transverse energy production at large pseudorapidity is observed to decrease with a linear dependence on the longitudinal momentum fraction in the target proton and to depend only weakly on that in the projectile proton. The results are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generators, which qualitatively reproduce the trends observed in data but generally underpredict the overall level of transverse energy at forward pseudorapidity.
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