Abstract: Hitherto unobserved long-lived massive particles with electric and/or colour charge are predicted by a range of theories which extend the Standard Model. In this Letter a search is performed at the ATLAS experiment for slow-moving charged particles produced in proton-proton collisions at 7 TeV centre-of-mass energy at the LHC, using a data-set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb(-1). No deviations from Standard Model expectations are found. This result is interpreted in a framework of supersymmetry models in which coloured sparticles can hadronise into long-lived bound hadronic states, termed R-hadrons, and 95% CL limits are set on the production cross-sections of squarks and gluinos. The influence of R-hadron interactions in matter was studied using a number of different models, and lower mass limits for stable sbottoms and stops are found to be 294 and 309 GeV respectively. The lower mass limit for a stable gluino lies in the range from 562 to 586 GeV depending on the model assumed. Each of these constraints is the most stringent to date.

Abstract: A search for leptoquarks decaying into the b tau final state is performed using Run 2 proton-proton collision data from the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1) at root s = 13TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector. The benchmark models considered in this search are vector leptoquarks with electric charge of 2/3e and scalar leptoquarks with an electric charge of 4/3e. No significant excess above the Standard Model prediction is observed, and 95% confidence level upper limits are set on the cross-section times branching fraction of leptoquarks decaying into b tau. For the vector leptoquark production two models are considered: the Yang-Mills and Minimal coupling models. In the Yang-Mills (Minimal coupling) scenario, vector leptoquarks with a mass below 1.58 (1.35) TeV are excluded for a gauge coupling of 1.0 and below 2.05 (1.99) TeV for a gauge coupling of 2.5. In the case of scalar leptoquarks, masses below 1.28 (1.53) TeV are excluded for a Yukawa coupling of 1.0 (2.5). Finally, an interpretation of the results with minimal model dependence is performed for each of the signal region categories, and limits on the visible cross-section for beyond the Standard Model processes are provided.

Abstract: The decays B-c(+) -> J/psi D-s(+) and B-c(+) -> J/psi D-s*(+) are studied with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using a dataset corresponding to integrated luminosities of 4.9 and 20.6 fb(-1) of pp collisions collected at centre-of-mass energies root s = 7 TeV and 8 TeV, respectively. Signal candidates are identified through J/psi -> mu(+)mu(-) and D-s(()*()+) -> phi pi(+)(gamma/pi(0)) decays. With a two-dimensional likelihood fit involving the B-c(+) reconstructed invariant mass and an angle between the mu(+) and D-s(+) candidate momenta in the muon pair rest frame, the yields of B-c(+) -> J/psi D-s(+) and B-c(+) -> J/psi D-s*(+), and the transverse polarisation fraction in B-c(+) -> J/psi D-s*(+) decay are measured. The transverse polarisation fraction is determined to be Gamma +/-+/-(B-c(+) -> J/psi D-s*(+))/Gamma(B-c(+) -> J/psi D-s*(+)) = 0.38 +/- 0.23 +/- 0.07, and the derived ratio of the branching fractions of the two modes is B-Bc+ -> J/psi D-s*+/B-Bc+ -> J/psi D-s(+) = 2.8(-0.8)(+1.2) +/- 0.3, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic. Finally, a sample of B-c(+) -> J/psi pi(+) decays is used to derive the ratios of branching fractions B-Bc+ -> J/psi D-s*+/B-Bc+ -> J/psi pi(+) = 3.8 +/- 1.1 +/- 0.4 +/- 0.2 and B-Bc+ -> J/psi D-s*+/B-Bc+ -> J/psi pi(+) = 10.4 +/- 3.1 +/- 1.5 +/- 0.6, where the third error corresponds to the uncertainty of the branching fraction of D-s(+) -> phi(K+ K-)pi(+) decay. The available theoretical predictions are generally consistent with the measurement.