ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Evidence of off-shell Higgs boson production from ZZ leptonic decay channels and constraints on its total width with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 846, 138223–29pp.
Abstract: This Letter reports on a search for off-shell production of the Higgs boson using 139 fb(-1) of pp collision data at root s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The signature is a pair of Z bosons, with contributions from both the production and subsequent decay of a virtual Higgs boson and the interference of that process with other processes. The two observable final states are ZZ -> 4l and Z Z -> 2l2 nu with l = e or mu. In the ZZ -> 4l final state, a dense Neural Network is used to enhance analysis sensitivity with respect to matrix element-based discrimination. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with an observed (expected) significance of 3.3 (2.2) standard deviations, representing experimental evidence for off-shell Higgs boson production. Assuming that no new particles enter the production of the virtual Higgs boson, its total width can be deduced from the measurement of its off-shell production cross-section. The measured total width of the Higgs boson is 4.5(-2.5)(+3.3) MeV, and the observed (expected) upper limit on the total width is found to be 10.5 (10.9) MeV at 95% confidence level.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cantero, J., et al. (2023). Measurement of substructure-dependent jet suppression in Pb plus Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. C, 107(5), 054909–32pp.
Abstract: The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider has been used to measure jet substructure modification and suppression in Pb+Pb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy root sNN = 5.02 TeV in comparison with proton-proton (pp) collisions at root s = 5.02 TeV. The Pb+Pb data, collected in 2018, have an integrated luminosity of 1.72 nb(-1), while the pp data, collected in 2017, have an integrated luminosity of 260 pb(-1). Jets used in this analysis are clustered using the anti-k(t) algorithm with a radius parameter R = 0.4. The jet constituents, defined by both tracking and calorimeter information, are used to determine the angular scale rg of the first hard splitting inside the jet by reclustering them using the Cambridge-Aachen algorithm and employing the soft-drop grooming technique. The nuclear modification factor, RAA, used to characterize jet suppression in Pb+Pb collisions, is presented differentially in rg, jet transverse momentum, and in intervals of collision centrality. The RAA value is observed to depend significantly on jet r(g). Jets produced with the largest measured r(g) are found to be twice as suppressed as those with the smallest rg in central Pb+Pb collisions. The RAA values do not exhibit a strong variation with jet p(T) in any of the rg intervals. The r(g) and p(T) dependence of jet RAA is qualitatively consistent with a picture of jet quenching arising from coherence and provides the most direct evidence in support of this approach.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Observation of an Excess of Dicharmonium Events in the Four-Muon Final State with the ATLAS Detector. Phys. Rev. Lett., 131(15), 151902–22pp.
Abstract: A search is made for potential ccc over bar c over bar tetraquarks decaying into a pair of charmonium states in the four ffiffi muon final state using proton-proton collision data at p s = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb-1 recorded by the ATLAS experiment at LHC. Two decay channels, J lig +J lig -4 μand J lig + ig(2S) -4 mu, are studied. Backgrounds are estimated based on a hybrid approach involving Monte Carlo simulations and data-driven methods. Statistically significant excesses with respect to backgrounds dominated by the single parton scattering are seen in the di-J lig channel consistent with a narrow resonance at 6.9 GeV and a broader structure at lower mass. A statistically significant excess is also seen in the J lig + ig(2S) channel. The fitted masses and decay widths of the structures are reported.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aikot, A., Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., et al. (2023). Search for Dark Photons in Rare Z Boson Decays with the ATLAS Detector. Phys. Rev. Lett., 131(25), 251801–23pp.
Abstract: A search for events with a dark photon produced in association with a dark Higgs boson via rare decays of the standard model Z boson is presented, using 139 fb(-1) of root p 1/4 13 TeV proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The dark boson decays into a pair of dark photons, and at least two of the three dark photons must each decay into a pair of electrons or muons, resulting in at least two same-flavor opposite-charge lepton pairs in the final state. The data are found to be consistent with the background prediction, and upper limits are set on the dark photon's coupling to the dark Higgs boson times the kinetic mixing between the standard model photon and the dark photon, alpha(D)epsilon(2), in the dark photon mass range of [5, 40] GeV except for the gamma mass window [8.8, 11.1] GeV. This search explores new parameter space not previously excluded by other experiments.
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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 exclusive Higgs and Z boson decays to ωγ and Higgs boson decays to K*γ with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 847, 138292–23pp.
Abstract: Searches for the exclusive decays of the Higgs boson to an omega meson and a photon or a K* meson and a photon can probe flavour-conserving and flavour-violating Higgs boson couplings to light quarks, respectively. Searches for these decays, along with the analogous Z boson decay to an omega meson and a photon, are performed with a pp collision data sample corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 134 fb(-1) collected at root s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The obtained 95% confidence-level upper limits on the respective branching fractions are B(H -> omega gamma) < 5.5 x 10(-4), B(H -> K*gamma) < 2.2 x 10(-4) and B(Z -> omega gamma) < 3.9 x 10(-6). The limits for H -> omega gamma and Z -> omega gamma) are 370 times and 140 times the Standard Model expected values, respectively. The result for Z -> omega gamma corresponds to a two-orders-of-magnitude improvement over the limit obtained by the DELPHI experiment at LEP.
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