Abstract: The ATLAS Inner Detector is a composite tracking system consisting of silicon pixels, silicon strips and straw tubes in a 2 T magnetic field. Its installation was completed in August 2008 and the detector took part in data-taking with single LHC beams and cosmic rays. The initial detector operation, hardware commissioning and in-situ calibrations are described. Tracking performance has been measured with 7.6 million cosmic-ray events, collected using a tracking trigger and reconstructed with modular pattern-recognition and fitting software. The intrinsic hit efficiency and tracking trigger efficiencies are close to 100%. Lorentz angle measurements for both electrons and holes, specific energy-loss calibration and transition radiation turn-on measurements have been performed. Different alignment techniques have been used to reconstruct the detector geometry. After the initial alignment, a transverse impact parameter resolution of 22.1 +/- 0.9 μm and a relative momentum resolution sigma (p) /p=(4.83 +/- 0.16)x10(-4) GeV(-1)xp (T) have been measured for high momentum tracks.

Abstract: This paper reports inclusive and differential measurements of the t (t) over bar charge asymmetry A(C) in 20.3 fb(-1) of root s = 8 TeV pp collisions recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Three differential measurements are performed as a function of the invariant mass, transverse momentum and longitudinal boost of the t (t) over bar system. The t (t) over bar pairs are selected in the single-lepton channels (e or mu) with at least four jets, and a likelihood fit is used to reconstruct the t (t) over bar event kinematics. A Bayesian unfolding procedure is performed to infer the asymmetry at parton level from the observed data distribution. The inclusive t (t) over bar charge asymmetry is measured to be A(C) = 0.009 +/- 0.005 (stat. + syst.). The inclusive and differential measurements are compatible with the values predicted by the Standard Model.

Abstract: We present a calculation for the masses of the first radially excited states of 40 mesons and diquarks made up of u , d , s , c , and b quarks, including states that contain one or both heavy quarks. To this end, we employ a combined analysis of the Bethe-Salpeter and Schwinger-Dyson equations within a self-consistent and symmetry-preserving vector-vector contact interaction. The same set of parameters describes ground and excited states of mesons and their diquark partners. The wave function of the first radial excitation contains a zero whose location is correlated with an additional parameter d F which is a function of dressed quark masses. Our results satisfy the equal spacing rules given by the Gell-Mann Okubo mass relations. Wherever possible, we make comparisons of our findings with known experimental observations as well as theoretical predictions of several other models and approaches including lattice quantum chromodynamics, finding a very good agreement. We report predictions for a multitude of radial excitations not yet observed in experiments.

Abstract: This Letter presents the first study of Higgs boson production in association with a vector boson (V = W or Z) in the fully hadronic qqbb final state using data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in ffiffiproton-proton collisions at root root s= 13 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137fb(-1). The vector bosons and Higgs bosons are each reconstructed as large-radius jets and tagged using jet substructure techniques. Dedicated tagging algorithms exploiting b-tagging properties are used to identify jets consistent with Higgs bosons decaying into b (b) over bar. Dominant backgrounds from multijet production are determined directly from the data, and a likelihood fit to the jet mass distribution of Higgs boson candidates is used to extract the number of signal events. The VH production cross section is measured inclusively and differentially in several ranges of Higgs boson transverse momentum: 250-450, 450-650, and greater than 650 GeV. The inclusive signal yield relative to the standard model expectation is observed to be μ= 1.4(-0.9)(+1.0) and the corresponding cross section is 3.1 +/- 1.3(stat)(-1.4)(+1.8) (syst) pb.

Abstract: Treatment planning systems at proton-therapy centres entirely use X-ray computed tomography (CT) as primary imaging technique to infer the proton treatment doses to tumour and healthy tissues. However, proton stopping powers in the body, as derived from X-ray images, suffer from important proton-range uncertainties. In order to reduce this uncertainty in range, one could use proton-CT images instead. The main goal of this work is to test the capabilities of a newly-developed proton-CT scanner, based on the use of a set of tracking detectors and a high energy resolution scintillator for the residual energy of the protons. Different custom-made phantoms were positioned at the field of view of the scanner and were irradiated with protons at the CCB proton-therapy center in Krakow. We measured with the phantoms at different angles and produced sinograms that were used to obtain reconstructed images by Filtered Back-Projection. The obtained images were used to determine the capabilities of our scanner in terms of spatial resolution and proton Relative Stopping Power (RSP) mapping and validate its use as proton-CT scanner. The results show that the scanner can produce medium-high quality images, with spatial resolution better than 2 mm in radiography, below 3 mm in tomography and resolving power in the RSP comparable to other state-of-the-art pCT scanners.