ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cantero, J., et al. (2023). Search for pair-produced scalar and vector leptoquarks decaying into third-generation quarks and first- or second-generation leptons in pp collisions with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 188–49pp.
Abstract: A search for pair-produced scalar and vector leptoquarks decaying into quarks and leptons of different generations is presented. It uses the full LHC Run 2 (2015-2018) data set of 139 fb(-1) collected with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 13TeV. Scalar leptoquarks with charge -(1/3) e as well as scalar and vector leptoquarks with charge +(2/3) e are considered. All possible decays of the pair-produced leptoquarks into quarks of the third generation ( t, b) and charged or neutral leptons of the first or second generation ( e, mu, nu) with exactly one electron or muon in the final state are investigated. No significant deviations from the Standard Model expectation are observed. Upper limits on the production cross-section are provided for eight models as a function of the leptoquark mass and the branching ratio of the leptoquark into the charged or neutral lepton. In addition, lower limits on the leptoquark masses are derived for all models across a range of branching ratios. Two of these models have the goal of providing an explanation for the recent B-anomalies. In both models, a vector leptoquark decays into charged and neutral leptons of the second generation with a similar branching fraction. Lower limits of 1980 GeV and 1710 GeV are set on the leptoquark mass for these two models.
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Search for excited tau-leptons and leptoquarks in the final state with tau-leptons and jets in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 199–46pp.
Abstract: A search is reported for excited tau-leptons and leptoquarks in events with two hadronically decaying tau-leptons and two or more jets. The search uses proton-proton (pp) collision data at root s = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment during the Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider in 2015-2018. The total integrated luminosity is 139 fb(-1). The excited tau-lepton is assumed to be produced and to decay via a four-fermion contact interaction into an ordinary tau-lepton and a quark-antiquark pair. The leptoquarks are assumed to be produced in pairs via the strong interaction, and each leptoquark is assumed to couple to a charm or lighter quark and a tau-lepton. No excess over the background prediction is observed. Excited tau-leptons with masses below 2.8 TeV are excluded at 95% CL in scenarios with the contact interaction scale Lambda set to 10 TeV. At the extreme limit of model validity where Lambda is set equal to the excited tau-lepton mass, excited tau-leptons with masses below 4.6 TeV are excluded. Leptoquarks with masses below 1.3 TeV are excluded at 95% CL if their branching ratio to a charm quark and a tau-lepton equals 1. The analysis does not exploit flavour-tagging in the signal region.
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., et al. (2023). Search for light long-lived neutral particles that decay to collimated pairs of leptons or light hadrons in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 153–55pp.
Abstract: A search for light long-lived neutral particles with masses in the O(MeV-GeV) range is presented. The analysis targets the production of long-lived dark photons in the decay of a Higgs boson produced via gluon-gluon fusion or in association with a W boson. Events that contain displaced collimated Standard Model fermions reconstructed in the calorimeter or muon spectrometer are selected in 139 fb(-1) of p s = 13TeV pp collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Background estimates for contributions from Standard Model processes and instrumental effects are extracted from data. The observed event yields are consistent with the expected background. Exclusion limits are reported on the production cross-section times branching fraction as a function of the mean proper decay length c tau of the dark photon, or as a function of the dark-photon mass and kinetic mixing parameter that quantifies the coupling between the Standard Model and potential hidden (dark) sectors. A Higgs boson branching fraction above 1% is excluded at 95% CL for a Higgs boson decaying into two dark photons for dark-photon mean proper decay lengths between 10 mm and 250 mm and dark photons with masses between 0.4 GeV and 2 GeV.
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cantero, J., et al. (2023). Search for flavour-changing neutral current interactions of the top quark and the Higgs boson in events with a pair of tau-leptons in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 155–57pp.
Abstract: A search for flavour-changing neutral current (FCNC) tqH interactions involving a top quark, another up-type quark (q = u, c), and a Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson decaying into a tau-lepton pair (H -> tau(+)tau(-)) is presented. The search is based on a dataset of pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV that corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1) recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Two processes are considered: single top quark FCNC production in association with a Higgs boson (pp -> tH), and top quark pair production in which one of top quarks decays into Wb and the other decays into qH through the FCNC interactions. The search selects events with two hadronically decaying tau-lepton candidates (tau(had)) or at least one tau(had) with an additional lepton (e, mu), as well as multiple jets. Event kinematics is used to separate signal from the background through a multivariate discriminant. A slight excess of data is observed with a significance of 2.3 sigma above the expected SM background, and 95% CL upper limits on the t -> qH branching ratios are derived. The observed (expected) 95% CL upper limits set on the t -> cH and t -> uH branching ratios are 9.4x10(-4)(4.8(-1.4)(+2.2) x 10(-4)) and 6.9x10(-4) (3.5(-1.0)(+1.5) x10(-4)), respectively. The corresponding combined observed (expected) upper limits on the dimension-6 operator Wilson coefficients in the effective tqH couplings are C-c phi < 1.35 (0.97) and C-u phi < 1.16 (0.82).
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Akiot, A., Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., et al. (2023). Search for flavour-changing neutral tqH interactions with H → γγ in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 12(12), 195–53pp.
Abstract: A search for flavour-changing neutral interactions involving the top quark, the Higgs boson and an up-type quark q ( q = c, u) is presented. The proton-proton collision data set used, with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1), was collected at root s = 13TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Both the decay process t -> qH in tt production and the production process pp. tH, with the Higgs boson decaying into two photons, are investigated. No significant excess is observed and upper limits are set on the t. cH and the t. uH branching ratios of 4.3x10(-4) and 3.8x10(-4), respectively, at the 95% confidence level, while the expected limits in the absence of signal are 4.7x10(-4) and 3.9x10(-4). Combining this search with ATLAS searches in the H. t+ t- and H. b <overline> b final states yields observed (expected) upper limits on the t -> cH branching ratio of 5.8 x 10(-4) (3.0 x 10(-4)) at the 95% confidence level. The corresponding observed (expected) upper limit on the t -> uH branching ratio is 4.0 x 10(-4) (2.4 x 10(-4)).
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., et al. (2022). Search for neutral long-lived particles in pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV that decay into displaced hadronic jets in the ATLAS calorimeter. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 005–49pp.
Abstract: A search for decays of pair-produced neutral long-lived particles (LLPs) is presented using 139 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015-2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Dedicated techniques were developed for the reconstruction of displaced jets produced by LLPs decaying hadronically in the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter. Two search regions are defined for different LLP kinematic regimes. The observed numbers of events are consistent with the expected background, and limits for several benchmark signals are determined. For a SM Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, branching ratios above 10% are excluded at 95% confidence level for values of c times LLP mean proper lifetime in the range between 20 mm and 10 m depending on the model. Upper limits are also set on the cross-section times branching ratio for scalars with a mass of 60 GeV and for masses between 200 GeV and 1 Tev.
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., et al. (2022). Measurement of Higgs boson decay into b-quarks in associated production with a top-quark pair in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 097–63pp.
Abstract: The associated production of a Higgs boson and a top-quark pair is measured in events characterised by the presence of one or two electrons or muons. The Higgs boson decay into a b-quark pair is used. The analysed data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1), were collected in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider between 2015 and 2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of A root s = 13 TeV. The measured signal strength, defined as the ratio of the measured signal yield to that predicted by the Standard Model, is 0.35(-0.34)(+0.36). This result is compatible with the Standard Model prediction and corresponds to an observed (expected) significance of 1.0 (2.7) standard deviations. The signal strength is also measured differentially in bins of the Higgs boson transverse momentum in the simplified template cross-section framework, including a bin for specially selected boosted Higgs bosons with transverse momentum above 300 GeV.
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., et al. (2022). Modelling and computational improvements to the simulation of single vector-boson plus jet processes for the ATLAS experiment. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 089–61pp.
Abstract: This paper presents updated Monte Carlo configurations used to model the production of single electroweak vector bosons (W, Z/gamma*) in association with jets in proton-proton collisions for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Improvements pertaining to the electroweak input scheme, parton-shower splitting kernels and scale-setting scheme are shown for multi-jet merged configurations accurate to next-to-leading order in the strong and electroweak couplings. The computational resources required for these set-ups are assessed, and approximations are introduced resulting in a factor three reduction of the per-event CPU time without affecting the physics modelling performance. Continuous statistical enhancement techniques are introduced by ATLAS in order to populate low cross-section regions of phase space and are shown to match or exceed the generated effective luminosity. This, together with the lower per-event CPU time, results in a 50% reduction in the required computing resources compared to a legacy set-up previously used by the ATLAS collaboration. The set-ups described in this paper will be used for future ATLAS analyses and lay the foundation for the next generation of Monte Carlo predictions for single vector-boson plus jets production.
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Searches for lepton-flavour-violating decays of the Higgs boson into eτ and μτ in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 166–74pp.
Abstract: This paper presents direct searches for lepton flavour violation in Higgs boson decays, H -> e tau and H -> μtau, performed using data collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The searches are based on a data sample of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy root s = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb(-1). Leptonic (tau -> l nu(l)nu(tau)) and hadronic (tau -> hadrons nu(tau)) decays of the tau-lepton are considered. Two background estimation techniques are employed: the MC-template method, based on data-corrected simulation samples, and the Symmetry method, based on exploiting the symmetry between electrons and muons in the Standard Model backgrounds. No significant excess of events is observed and the results are interpreted as upper limits on lepton-flavour-violating branching ratios of the Higgs boson. The observed (expected) upper limits set on the branching ratios at 95% confidence level, B(H -> e tau) < 0.20% (0.12%) and B(H -> μtau ) < 0.18% (0.09%), are obtained with the MC-template method from a simultaneous measurement of potential H -> e tau and H -> μtau signals. The best-fit branching ratio difference, B(H -> μtau) -> B(H -> e tau), measured with the Symmetry method in the channel where the tau-lepton decays to leptons, is (0.25 0.10)%, compatible with a value of zero within 2.5 sigma.
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Search for dark photons from Higgs boson decays via ZH production with a photon plus missing transverse momentum signature from pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 133–51pp.
Abstract: This paper describes a search for dark photons (gamma(d)) in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13TeV at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The dark photons are searched for in the decay of Higgs bosons ( H -> gamma gamma(d)) produced through the ZH production mode. The transverse mass of the system, made of the photon and the missing transverse momentum from the non-interacting gamma(d), presents a distinctive signature as it peaks near the Higgs boson mass. The results presented use the total Run-2 integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1) recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The dominant reducible background processes are estimated using data-driven techniques. A Boosted Decision Tree technique is adopted to enhance the sensitivity of the search. As no excess is observed with respect to the Standard Model prediction, an observed (expected) upper limit on the branching ratio BR( H -> gamma gamma(d)) of 2.28% (2.82(-0.84%)(+1.33)) is set at 95% CL for massless gamma(d). For massive dark photons up to 40 GeV, the observed (expected) upper limits on BR( H -> gamma gamma(d)) at 95% confidence level is found within the [2.19,2.52]% ([2.71,3.11]%) range.
|