Abstract: This Letter describes a model-independent search for the production of new resonances in photon + jet (gamma + jet) events using 20 fb(-1) of proton-proton LHC data recorded with the ATLAS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV. The gamma + jet mass distribution is compared to a background model fit from data; no significant deviation from the background-only hypothesis is found. Limits are set at 95% credibility level on generic Gaussian-shaped signals and two benchmark phenomena beyond the Standard Model: non-thermal quantum black holes and excited quarks. Non-thermal quantum black holes are excluded below masses of 4.6 TeV and excited quarks are excluded below masses of 3.5 TeV.

Abstract: Evidence for electroweak production of two jets in association with a Z gamma pair in root s = 13 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. The analysis uses data collected by the ATLAS detector in 2015 and 2016 that corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1). Events that contain a Z boson candidate decaying leptonically into either e(+)e(-) or mu(+)mu(-), a photon, and two jets are selected. The electroweak component is measured with observed and expected significances of 4.1 standard deviations. The fiducial cross-section for electroweak production is measured to be sigma(Z gamma jj-Ew) = 7.8 +/- 2.0 fb, in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction.

Abstract: Azimuthal anisotropies of muons from charm and bottom hadron decays are measured in Pb+Pb collisions at root s(NN) = 5.02 TeV. The data were collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2018 with integrated luminosities of 0.5 nb(-1) and 1.4 nb(-1), respectively. The kinematic selection for heavy-flavor muons requires transverse momentum 4 < p(T) < 30 GeV and pseudorapidity vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2.0. The dominant sources of muons in this p -r range are semi-leptonic decays of charm and bottom hadrons. These heavy-flavor muons are separated from light-hadron decay muons and punch-through hadrons using the momentum imbalance between the measurements in the tracking detector and in the muon spectrometers. Azimuthal anisotropies, quantified by flow coefficients, are measured via the eventplane method for inclusive heavy-flavor muons as a function of the muon p(T) and in intervals of Pb+Pb collision centrality. Heavy-flavor muons are separated into contributions from charm and bottom hadron decays using the muon transverse impact parameter with respect to the event primary vertex. Non-zero elliptic (v(2)) and triangular (v(3)) flow coefficients are extracted for charm and bottom muons, with the charm muon coefficients larger than those for bottom muons for all Pb+Pb collision centralities. The results indicate substantial modification to the charm and bottom quark angular distributions through interactions in the quark-gluon plasma produced in these Pb+Pb collisions, with smaller modifications for the bottom quarks as expected theoretically due to their larger mass.

Abstract: A search for the dimuon decay of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson is performed using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1) collected with the ATLAS detector in Run 2 pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider. The observed (expected) significance over the background-only hypothesis for a Higgs boson with a mass of 125.09 GeV is 2.0 sigma (1.7 sigma). The observed upper limit on the cross section times branching ratio for pp -> H -> μμis 2.2 times the SM prediction at 95% confidence level, while the expected limit on a H -> μμsignal assuming the absence (presence) of a SM signal is 1.1(2.0). The best-fit value of the signal strength parameter, defined as the ratio of the observed signal yield to the one expected in the SM, is μ= 1.2 +/- 0.6.

Abstract: Leptons with essentially the same properties apart from their mass are grouped into three families (or flavours). The number of leptons of each flavour is conserved in interactions, but this is not imposed by fundamental principles. Since the formulation of the standard model of particle physics, the observation of flavour oscillations among neutrinos has shown that lepton flavour is not conserved in neutrino weak interactions. So far, there has been no experimental evidence that this also occurs in interactions between charged leptons. Such an observation would be a sign of undiscovered particles or a yet unknown type of interaction. Here the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN reports a constraint on lepton-flavour-violating effects in weak interactions, searching for Z-boson decays into a tau lepton and another lepton of different flavour with opposite electric charge. The branching fractions for these decays are measured to be less than 8.1 x 10(-6) (e tau) and 9.5 x 10(-6) (mu tau) at the 95% confidence level using 139 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV and 20.3 fb(-1) at root s = 8 TeV. These results supersede the limits from the Large Electron-Positron Collider experiments conducted more than two decades ago.