Abstract: More than half a million minimum-bias events of LHC collision data were collected by the ATLAS experiment in December 2009 at centre-of-mass energies of 0.9 TeV and 2.36 TeV. This paper reports on studies of the initial performance of the ATLAS detector from these data. Comparisons between data and Monte Carlo predictions are shown for distributions of several track- and calorimeter-based quantities. The good performance of the ATLAS detector in these first data gives confidence for successful running at higher energies.

Abstract: We present studies of W and Z bosons with associated high energy photons produced in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV. The analysis uses 35 pb(-1) of data collected by the ATLAS experiment in 2010. The event selection requires W and Z bosons decaying into high pT leptons (electrons or muons) and a photon with E(T) > 15 GeV separated from the lepton(s) by a distance Delta R(l, gamma) > 0.7 in eta-phi space. A total of 95 (97) pp -> e(+/-)nu gamma + X (pp -> mu(+/-)nu gamma + X) and 25 (23) pp -> e(+)e(-)gamma + X (pp -> mu(+)mu(-)gamma + X) event candidates are selected. The kinematic distributions of the leptons and photons and the production cross sections are measured. The data are found to agree with Standard Model predictions that include next-to-leading-order O(alpha alpha(s)) contributions.

Abstract: We report a study of final states containing a W boson and hadronic jets, produced in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The data were collected with the ATLAS detector at the CERN LHC and comprise the full 2010 data sample of 36 pb(-1). Cross sections are determined using both the electron and muon decay modes of the W boson and are presented as a function of inclusive jet multiplicity, N-jet, for up to five jets. At each multiplicity, cross sections are presented as a function of jet transverse momentum, the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of the charged lepton, missing transverse momentum, and all jets, the invariant mass spectra of jets, and the rapidity distributions of various combinations of leptons and final-state jets. The results, corrected for all detector effects and for all backgrounds such as diboson and top quark pair production, are compared with particle-level predictions from perturbative QCD. Leading-order multiparton event generators, normalized to the next-to-next-to-leading-order total cross section for inclusive W-boson production, describe the data reasonably well for all measured inclusive jet multiplicities. Next-to-leading-order calculations from MCFM, studied here for N-jet <= 2, and BLACKHAT-SHERPA, studied here for N-jet <= 4, are found to be mostly in good agreement with the data.

Abstract: This work presents a new inclusive search for supersymmetry (SUSY) by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy root s = 7 TeV in final states with jets, missing transverse momentum and one or more isolated electrons and/or muons. The search is based on data from the full 2011 data-taking period, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb(-1). Single-lepton and multilepton channels are treated together in one analysis. An increase in sensitivity is obtained by simultaneously fitting the number of events in statistically independent signal regions, and the shapes of distributions within those regions. A dedicated signal region is introduced to be sensitive to decay cascades of SUSY particles with small mass differences (“compressed SUSY”). Background uncertainties are constrained by fitting to the jet-multiplicity distribution in background control regions. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations, and limits are set or extended on a number of SUSY models.

Abstract: A search for a fermiophobic Higgs boson using diphoton events produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 7 TeV is performed using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 fb(-1) collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. A specific benchmark model is considered where all the fermion couplings to the Higgs boson are set to zero and the bosonic couplings are kept at the Standard Model values (fermiophobic Higgs model). The largest excess with respect to the background-only hypothesis is found at 125.5 GeV, with a local significance of 2.9 standard deviations, which reduces to 1.6 standard deviations when taking into account the look-elsewhere effect. The data exclude the fermiophobic Higgs model in the ranges 110.0-118.0 GeV and 119.5-121.0 GeV at 95 % confidence level.