Abstract: This paper presents the application of a variety of techniques to study jet substructure. The performance of various modified jet algorithms, or jet grooming techniques, for several jet types and event topologies is investigated for jets with transverse momentum larger than 300 GeV. Properties of jets subjected to the mass-drop filtering, trimming, and pruning algorithms are found to have a reduced sensitivity to multiple proton-proton interactions, are more stable at high luminosity and improve the physics potential of searches for heavy boosted objects. Studies of the expected discrimination power of jet mass and jet substructure observables in searches for new physics are also presented. Event samples enriched in boosted W and Z bosons and top-quark pairs are used to study both the individual jet invariant mass scales and the efficacy of algorithms to tag boosted hadronic objects. The analyses presented use the full 2011 ATLAS dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 +/- 0.1 fb(-1) from proton-proton collisions produced by the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 7 TeV.

Abstract: The process pp -> W (+/-) J/psi provides a powerful probe of the production mechanism of charmonium in hadronic collisions, and is also sensitive to multiple parton interactions in the colliding protons. Using the 2011 ATLAS dataset of 4.5 fb(-1) of root s= 7 TeV pp collisions at the LHC, the first observation is made of the production of W (+/-) + prompt J/psi events in hadronic collisions, using W (+/-) -> μnu(mu) and J/psi -> mu(+)mu(-) center dot A yield of W (+/-) + prompt J/psi events is observed, with a statistical significance of 5.1 sigma. The production rate as a ratio to the inclusive W (+/-) boson production rate is measured, and the double parton scattering contribution to the cross section is estimated.

Abstract: A search is performed for flavour-changing neutral currents in the decay of a top quark to an up-type (c, u) quark and a Higgs boson, where the Higgs boson decays to two photons. The proton-proton collision data set used corresponds to 4.7 fb(-1) at root s = 7TeV and 20.3 fb(-1) at root s = 8TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Top quark pair events are searched for in which one top quark decays to qH and the other decays to bW. Both the hadronic and the leptonic decay modes of the W boson are used. No significant signal is observed and an upper limit is set on the t -> qH branching ratio of 0.79% at the 95% confidence level. The corresponding limit on the tqH coupling combination root lambda(2)(tcH) + root lambda(2)(tuH) is 0.17.

Abstract: The differential cross section for the process Z/gamma* -> ll (l = e, mu) as a function of dilepton invariant mass is measured in pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV at the LHC using the ATLAS detector. The measurement is performed in the e and μchannels for invariant masses between 26 GeV and 66 GeV using an integrated luminosity of 1.6 fb(-1) collected in 2011 and these measurements are combined. The analysis is extended to invariant masses as low as 12 GeV in the muon channel using 35 pb(-1) of data collected in 2010. The cross sections are determined within fiducial acceptance regions and corrections to extrapolate the measurements to the full kinematic range are provided. Next-to-next-to-leading-order QCD predictions provide a significantly better description of the results than next-to-leading-order QCD calculations, unless the latter are matched to a parton shower calculation.

Abstract: A search for an excess of events with multiple high transverse momentum objects including charged leptons and jets is presented, using 20.3 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV. No excess of events beyond Standard Model expectations is observed. Using extra-dimensional models for black hole and string ball production and decay, exclusion contours are determined as a function of the mass threshold for production and the fundamental gravity scale for two, four and six extra dimensions. For six extra dimensions, mass thresholds of 4.8-6.2 TeV are excluded at 95 % confidence level, depending on the fundamental gravity scale and model assumptions. Upper limits on the fiducial cross-sections for non-Standard Model production of these final states are set.