Abstract: We study the collisional aspects of jet quenching in a high-energy nuclear collision, especially in the final state pion gas. The jet has a large energy, and acquires momentum transverse to its axis more effectively by multiple soft collisions than by few hard scatterings (as known from analogous systems such as J/psi production at Hera). Such regime of large E and small momentum transfer corresponds to Regge kinematics and is characteristically dominated by the pomeron. From this insight we estimate the jet quenching parameter in the hadron medium (largely a pion gas) at the end of the collision, which is naturally small and increases with temperature in line with the gas density and compare it to the jet quenching parameter obtained within the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) phase in widely known perturbative approximations. The physics in the quark-gluon plasma/liquid phase is less obvious, and here we revisit a couple of simple estimates that suggest indeed that the pomeron-mediated interactions are very relevant and should be included in analysis of the jet quenching parameter. Finally, since the occasional hard collisions produce features characteristic of a Levy flight in the q(perpendicular to)(2) plane perpendicular to the jet axis, we suggest one- and two-particle q perpendicular to correlations as interesting experimental probes sensitive to the nature (softness versus hardness) of the interactions of a jet inside the QGP.

Abstract: The identification of jets originating from quarks and gluons, often referred to as quark/gluon tagging, plays an important role in various analyses performed at the Large Hadron Collider, as Standard Model measurements and searches for new particles decaying to quarks often rely on suppressing a large gluon-induced background. This paper describes the measurement of the efficiencies of quark/gluon taggers developed within the ATLAS Collaboration, using root s = 13 TeV proton-proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb(-1) collected by the ATLAS experiment. Two taggers with high performances in rejecting jets from gluon over jets from quarks are studied: one tagger is based on requirements on the number of inner-detector tracks associated with the jet, and the other combines several jet substructure observables using a boosted decision tree. A method is established to determine the quark/gluon fraction in data, by using quark/gluon-enriched subsamples defined by the jet pseudorapidity. Differences in tagging efficiency between data and simulation are provided for jets with transverse momentum between 500 GeV and 2 TeV and for multiple tagger working points.

Abstract: A search for new resonances decaying into a pair of jets is reported using the dataset of proton-proton collisions recorded at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider between 2015 and 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1). The distribution of the invariant mass of the two leading jets is examined for local excesses above a data-derived estimate of the Standard Model background. In addition to an inclusive dijet search, events with jets identified as containing b-hadrons are examined specifically. No significant excess of events above the smoothly falling background spectra is observed. The results are used to set cross-section upper limits at 95% confidence level on a range of new physics scenarios. Model-independent limits on Gaussian-shaped signals are also reported. The analysis looking at jets containing b-hadrons benefits from improvements in the jet flavour identification at high transverse momentum, which increases its sensitivity relative to the previous analysis beyond that expected from the higher integrated luminosity.

Abstract: The t (t) over bar + jet + X differential cross-section in proton-proton collisions at 7 TeV centre of mass energy is investigated with respect to its sensitivity to the top quark mass. The analysis includes higher order QCD corrections at NLO. The impact of the renormalization scale (mu(R)), the factorization (mu(F)) scale and of the choice of different proton's PDF (parton distribution function) has been evaluated. In this study it is concluded that differential jet rates offer a promising option for alternative mass measurements of the top quark, with theoretical uncertainties below 1 GeV.

Abstract: Measurements of single-, double-, and triple-differential cross-sections are presented for boosted top-quark pair-production in 13 TeV proton-proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The top quarks are observed through their hadronic decay and reconstructed as large-radius jets with the leading jet having transverse momentum (p(T)) greater than 500 GeV. The observed data are unfolded to remove detector effects. The particle-level cross-section, multiplied by the t (t) over bar branching fraction and measured in a fiducial phase space defined by requiring the leading and second-leading jets to have p(T)> 500 GeV and p(T)> 350 GeV, respectively, is 331 +/- 3(stat.) +/- 39(syst.) fb. This is approximately 20% lower than the prediction of 398(-49)(+48) fb by Powheg+Pythia 8 with next-to-leading-order (NLO) accuracy but consistent within the theoretical uncertainties. Results are also presented at the parton level, where the effects of top-quark decay, parton showering, and hadronization are removed such that they can be compared with fixed-order next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) calculations. The parton-level cross-section, measured in a fiducial phase space similar to that at particle level, is 1.94 +/- 0.02(stat.) +/- 0.25(syst.) pb. This agrees with the NNLO prediction of 1.96(-0.17)(+0.02) pb. Reasonable agreement with the differential cross-sections is found for most NLO models, while the NNLO calculations are generally in better agreement with the data. The differential cross-sections are interpreted using a Standard Model effective field-theory formalism and limits are set on Wilson coefficients of several four-fermion operators.