Abstract: We present a search for a light (mass < 2 GeV) boson predicted by Hidden Valley supersymmetric models that decays into a final state consisting of collimated muons or electrons, denoted “lepton-jets”. The analysis uses 5 fb(-1) of root s = 7 TeV proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider to search for the following signatures: single lepton-jets with at least four muons; pairs of lepton-jets, each with two or more muons; and pairs of lepton-jets with two or more electrons. This study finds no statistically significant deviation from the Standard Model prediction and places 95% confidence-level exclusion limits on the production cross section times branching ratio of light bosons for several parameter sets of a Hidden Valley model.

Abstract: This paper describes the trigger and offline reconstruction, identification and energy calibration algorithms for hadronic decays of tau leptons employed for the data collected from pp collisions in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC center-of-mass energy root s = 8 TeV. The performance of these algorithms is measured in most cases with Z decays to tau leptons using the full 2012 dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1). An uncertainty on the offline reconstructed tau energy scale of 2-4%, depending on transverse energy and pseudorapidity, is achieved using two independent methods. The offline tau identification efficiency is measured with a precision of 2.5% for hadronically decaying tau leptons with one associated track, and of 4% for the case of three associated tracks, inclusive in pseudorapidity and for a visible transverse energy greater than 20 GeV. For hadronic tau lepton decays selected by offline algorithms, the tau trigger identification efficiency is measured with a precision of 2-8%, depending on the transverse energy. The performance of the tau algorithms, both offline and at the trigger level, is found to be stable with respect to the number of concurrent proton-proton interactions and has supported a variety of physics results using hadronically decaying tau leptons at ATLAS.

Abstract: Two searches for supersymmetric particles in final states containing a same-flavour opposite-sign lepton pair, jets and large missing transverse momentum are presented. The proton-proton collision data used in these searches were collected at a centre-of-mass energy root s = 8TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1). Two leptonic production mechanisms are considered: decays of squarks and gluinos with Z bosons in the final state, resulting in a peak in the dilepton invariant mass distribution around the Z-boson mass; and decays of neutralinos (e.g.. (chi) over tilde (0)(2) -> l(+)l(-) (chi) over tilde (0)(1)), resulting in a kinematic endpoint in the dilepton invariant mass distribution. For the former, an excess of events above the expected Standard Model background is observed, with a significance of three standard deviations. In the latter case, the data are well-described by the expected Standard Model background. The results from each channel are interpreted in the context of several supersymmetric models involving the production of squarks and gluinos.