Abstract: The luminosity determination for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during pp collisions at root s = 8 TeV in 2012 is presented. The evaluation of the luminosity scale is performed using several luminometers, and comparisons between these luminosity detectors are made to assess the accuracy, consistency and long-term stability of the results. A luminosity uncertainty of delta L/L = +/- 1.9% is obtained for the 22.7 fb(-1) of pp collision data delivered to ATLAS at root s = 8 TeV in 2012.

Abstract: This paper presents a study of WW gamma and WZ gamma triboson production using events from proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb(-1). The WW gamma production cross-section is determined using a final state containing an electron, a muon, a photon, and neutrinos (e upsilon μupsilon gamma). Upper limits on the production cross-section of the e upsilon μupsilon gamma final state and theWW gamma and WZ gamma final states containing an electron or a muon, two jets, a photon, and a neutrino (e upsilon j j gamma or μupsilon j j gamma) are also derived. The results are compared to the cross-sections predicted by the Standard Model at next-to-leading order in the strong-coupling constant. In addition, upper limits on the production cross-sections are derived in a fiducial region optimised for a search for newphysics beyond the Standard Model. The results are interpreted in the context of anomalous quartic gauge couplings using an effective field theory. Confidence intervals at 95% confidence level are derived for the 14 coupling coefficients to which WW gamma and WZ gamma production are sensitive.

Abstract: A search for new phenomena in final states containing an e(+)e(-) or m(+)m(-) pair, jets, and large missing transverse momentum is presented. This analysis makes use of proton-proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1), collected during 2015 and 2016 at a centre of-mass energy Os = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The search targets the pair production of supersymmetric coloured particles (squarks or gluinos) and their decays into final states containing an e(+)e(-) or m(+)m(-) pair and the lightest neutralino ((c) over tilde (0)(1)) via one of two next-to-lightest neutralino ((c) over tilde (0)(2)) decay mechanisms: (c) over tilde (0)(2) Z (c) over tilde (0)(1), where the Z boson decays leptonically leading to a peak in the dilepton invariant mass distribution around the Z boson mass; and (c) over tilde (0)(2) l(+)1(-) (c) over tilde (0)(1) with no intermediate l(+)l(-) resonance, yielding a kinematic endpoint in the dilepton invariant mass spectrum. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectation. Results are interpreted using simplified models, and exclude gluinos and squarks with masses as large as 1.85 and 1.3 TeV at 95% confidence level, respectively.

Abstract: The inclusive production of four isolated charged leptons in pp collisions is analysed for the presence of hard double-parton scattering, using 20.2 fb(-1) of data recorded in the ATLAS detector at the LHC at centre-of-mass energy root s = 8 TeV. In the four-lepton invariant-mass range of 80 < m(4l) < 1000 GeV, an artificial neural network is used to enhance the separation between single- and double-parton scattering based on the kinematics of the four leptons in the final state. An upper limit on the fraction of events originating from double-parton scattering is determined at 95% confidence level to be f(DPS) = 0.042, which results in an estimated lower limit on the effective cross section at 95% confidence level of 1.0 mb.

Abstract: The rejection of forward jets originating from additional proton-proton interactions (pile-up) is crucial for a variety of physics analyses at the LHC, including Standard Model measurements and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. The identification of such jets is challenging due to the lack of track and vertex information in the pseudorapidity range vertical bar eta vertical bar > 2.5. This paper presents a novel strategy for forward pile-up jet tagging that exploits jet shapes and topological jet correlations in pile-up interactions. Measurements of the per-jet tagging efficiency are presented using a data set of 3.2 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector. The fraction of pile-up jets rejected in the range 2.5 < vertical bar eta vertical bar < 4.5 is estimated in simulated events with an average of 22 interactions per bunch-crossing. It increases with jet transverse momentum and, for jets with transverse momentum between 20 and 50 GeV, it ranges between 49% and 67% with an efficiency of 85% for selecting hard-scatter jets. A case study is performed in Higgs boson production via the vector-boson fusion process, showing that these techniques mitigate the background growth due to additional proton-proton interactions, thus enhancing the reach for such signatures.