ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aikot, A., Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., et al. (2024). Search for New Phenomena in Two-Body Invariant Mass Distributions Using Unsupervised Machine Learning for Anomaly Detection at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS Detector. Phys. Rev. Lett., 132(8), 081801–23pp.
Abstract: Searches for new resonances are performed using an unsupervised anomaly-detection technique. Events with at least one electron or muon are selected from 140 fb-1 of pp collisions at p ffi s ffi= 13 TeV recorded by ATLAS at the Large Hadron Collider. The approach involves training an autoencoder on data, and subsequently defining anomalous regions based on the reconstruction loss of the decoder. Studies focus on nine invariant mass spectra that contain pairs of objects consisting of one light jet or b jet and either one lepton (e; mu), photon, or second light jet or b jet in the anomalous regions. No significant deviations from the background hypotheses are observed. Limits on contributions from generic Gaussian signals with various widths of the resonance mass are obtained for nine invariant masses in the anomalous regions.
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MoEDAL Collaboration(Acharya, B. et al), Mitsou, V. A., Papavassiliou, J., Ruiz de Austri, R., Santra, A., Vento, V., et al. (2022). Search for magnetic monopoles produced via the Schwinger mechanism. Nature, 602(7895), 63–67.
Abstract: Electrically charged particles can be created by the decay of strong enough electric fields, a phenomenon known as the Schwinger mechanism(1). By electromagnetic duality, a sufficiently strong magnetic field would similarly produce magnetic monopoles, if they exist(2). Magnetic monopoles are hypothetical fundamental particles that are predicted by several theories beyond the standard model(3-7) but have never been experimentally detected. Searching for the existence of magnetic monopoles via the Schwinger mechanism has not yet been attempted, but it is advantageous, owing to the possibility of calculating its rate through semi-classical techniques without perturbation theory, as well as that the production of the magnetic monopoles should be enhanced by their finite size(8,9) and strong coupling to photons(2,10). Here we present a search for magnetic monopole production by the Schwinger mechanism in Pb-Pb heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, producing the strongest known magnetic fields in the current Universe(11). It was conducted by the MoEDAL experiment, whose trapping detectors were exposed to 0.235 per nanobarn, or approximately 1.8 x 10(9), of Pb-Pb collisions with 5.02-teraelectronvolt center-of-mass energy per collision in November 2018. A superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer scanned the trapping detectors of MoEDAL for the presence of magnetic charge, which would induce a persistent current in the SQUID. Magnetic monopoles with integer Dirac charges of 1, 2 and 3 and masses up to 75 gigaelectronvolts per speed of light squared were excluded by the analysis at the 95% confidence level. This provides a lower mass limit for finite-size magnetic monopoles from a collider search and greatly extends previous mass bounds.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Ferrer, A., Fiorini, L., et al. (2012). Underlying event characteristics and their dependence on jet size of charged-particle jet events in pp collisions at root(s)=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. D, 86(7), 072004–34pp.
Abstract: Distributions sensitive to the underlying event are studied in events containing one or more chargedparticle jets produced in pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These measurements reflect 800 μb(-1) of data taken during 2010. Jets are reconstructed using the anti-k(t) algorithm with radius parameter R varying between 0.2 and 1.0. Distributions of the charged-particle multiplicity, the scalar sum of the transverse momentum of charged particles, and the average charged-particle p(T) are measured as functions of p(T)(jet) in regions transverse to and opposite the leading jet for 4 GeV < p(T)(jet) < 100 GeV. In addition, the R dependence of the mean values of these observables is studied. In the transverse region, both the multiplicity and the scalar sum of the transverse momentum at fixed p(T)(jet) vary significantly with R, while the average charged- particle transverse momentum has a minimal dependence on R. Predictions from several Monte Carlo tunes have been compared to the data; the predictions from Pythia 6, based on tunes that have been determined using LHC data, show reasonable agreement with the data, including the dependence on R. Comparisons with other generators indicate that additional tuning of soft-QCD parameters is necessary for these generators. The measurements presented here provide a testing ground for further development of the Monte Carlo models.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amoros, G., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Escobar, C., et al. (2011). Search for supersymmetric particles in events with lepton pairs and large missing transverse momentum in sqrt(s)=7 TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS experiment. European Physical Journal C, 71(7), 1682.
Abstract: Results are presented of searches for the production of supersymmetric particles decaying into final states with missing transverse momentum and exactly two isolated leptons in root s = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. Search strategies requiring lepton pairs with identical-sign or opposite-sign electric charges are described. In a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb(-1) collected with the ATLAS detector, no significant excesses are observed. Based on specific benchmark models, limits are placed on the squark mass between 450 and 690 GeV for squarks approximately degenerate in mass with gluinos, depending on the supersymmetric mass hierarchy considered.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amoros, G., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Escobar, C., et al. (2011). Search for an excess of events with an identical flavour lepton pair and significant missing transverse momentum in sqrt(s)=7 TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector. European Physical Journal C, 71(7), 1647.
Abstract: Results are presented of a search for particles decaying into final states with significant missing transverse momentum and exactly two identical flavour leptons (e, mu) of opposite charge in root s = 7 TeV collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. This channel is particularly sensitive to supersymmetric particle cascade decays producing flavour correlated lepton pairs. Flavour uncorrelated backgrounds are subtracted using a sample of opposite flavour lepton pair events. Observation of an excess beyond Standard Model expectations following this subtraction procedure would offer one of the best routes to measuring the masses of supersymmetric particles. In a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb(-1) no such excess is observed. Model-independent limits are set on the contribution to these final states from supersymmetry and are used to exclude regions of a phenomenological supersymmetric parameter space.
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