Abstract: A search is presented for photonic signatures, motivated by generalized models of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. This search makes use of proton-proton collision data at root s = 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1) recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC, and it explores models dominated by both strong and electroweak production of supersymmetric partner states. Experimental signatures incorporating an isolated photon and significant missing transverse momentum are explored. These signatures include events with an additional photon or additional jet activity not associated with any specific underlying quark flavor. No significant excess of events is observed above the Standard Model prediction, and 95% confidence-level upper limits of between 0.083 and 0.32 fb are set on the visible cross section of contributions from physics beyond the Standard Model. These results are interpreted in terms of lower limits on the masses of gluinos, squarks, and gauginos in the context of generalized models of gauge-mediated supersymmetry, which reach as high as 2.3 TeV for strongly produced and 1.3 TeV for weakly produced supersymmetric partner pairs.

Abstract: A search for heavy neutral Higgs bosons is performed using the LHC Run 2 data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector. The search for heavy resonances is performed over the mass range 0.2-2.5 TeV for the tau(+)tau(-) decay with at least one tau-lepton decaying into final states with hadrons. The data are in good agreement with the background prediction of the standard model. In the M-h(125) scenario of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, values of tan beta > 8 and tan beta > 21 are excluded at the 95% confidence level for neutral Higgs boson masses of 1.0 and 1.5 TeV, respectively, where tan beta is the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the two Higgs doublets.

Abstract: Searches for long-lived particles (LLPs) are among the most promising avenues for discovering physics beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). However, displaced signatures are notoriously difficult to identify due to their ability to evade standard object reconstruction strategies. In particular, the ATLAS track reconstruction applies strict pointing requirements which limit sensitivity to charged particles originating far from the primary interaction point. To recover efficiency for LLPs decaying within the tracking detector volume, the ATLAS Collaboration employs a dedicated large-radius tracking (LRT) passwith loosened pointing requirements. During Run 2 of the LHC, the LRT implementation produced many incorrectly reconstructed tracks and was therefore only deployed in small subsets of events. In preparation for LHC Run 3, ATLAS has significantly improved both standard and large-radius track reconstruction performance, allowing for LRT to run in all events. This development greatly expands the potential phase-space of LLP searches and streamlines LLP analysis workflows. This paper will highlight the above achievement and report on the readiness of the ATLAS detector for track-based LLP searches in Run 3.

Abstract: The ATLAS EventIndex was designed to provide a global event catalogue and limited event-level metadata for ATLAS experiment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and their analysis groups and users during Run 2 (2015-2018) and has been running in production since. The LHC Run 3, started in 2022, has seen increased data-taking and simulation production rates, with which the current infrastructure would still cope but may be stretched to its limits by the end of Run 3. A new core storage service is being developed in HBase/Phoenix, and there is work in progress to provide at least the same functionality as the current one for increased data ingestion and search rates and with increasing volumes of stored data. In addition, new tools are being developed for solving the needed access cases within the new storage. This paper describes a new tool using Spark and implemented in Scala for accessing the big data quantities of the EventIndex project stored in HBase/Phoenix. With this tool, we can offer data discovery capabilities at different granularities, providing Spark Dataframes that can be used or refined within the same framework. Data analytic cases of the EventIndex project are implemented, like the search for duplicates of events from the same or different datasets. An algorithm and implementation for the calculation of overlap matrices of events across different datasets are presented. Our approach can be used by other higher-level tools and users, to ease access to the data in a performant and standard way using Spark abstractions. The provided tools decouple data access from the actual data schema, which makes it convenient to hide complexity and possible changes on the backed storage.

Abstract: The analysis of the momentum difference between charged hadrons in high-energy proton-proton collisions is performed in order to study coherent particle production. The observed correlation pattern agrees with a model of a helical QCD string fragmenting into a chain of ground-state hadrons. A threshold momentum difference in the production of adjacent pairs of charged hadrons is observed, in agreement with model predictions. The presence of low-mass hadron chains also explains the emergence of charge-combination-dependent two-particle correlations commonly attributed to Bose-Einstein interference. The data sample consists of 190 μb(-1) of minimum-bias events collected with proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy root s = 7 TeV in the early low-luminosity data taking with the ATLAS detector at the LHC.