Abstract: Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the production of dark matter particles at the LHC. Sufficiently light dark matter particles may be produced in decays of the Higgs boson that would appear invisible to the detector. This Letter presents a statistical combination of searches for H & RARR; invisible decays where multiple production modes of the Standard Model Higgs boson are considered. These searches are performed with the ATLAS detector using 139 fb-1 of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of & RADIC;s = 13 TeV at the LHC. In combination with the results at & RADIC;s = 7 TeV and 8 TeV, an upper limit on the H & RARR; invisible branching ratio of 0.107 (0.077) at the 95% confidence level is observed (expected). These results are also interpreted in the context of models where the 125 GeV Higgs boson acts as a portal to dark matter, and limits are set on the scattering cross-section of weakly interacting massive particles and nucleons.

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.

Abstract: The inclusive top-quark pair ( t (t) over bar) production cross-section sigma(t (t) over bar) is measured in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy root s = 5.02TeV, using 257 pb(-1) of data collected in 2017 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The t (t) over bar cross-section is measured in both the dilepton and single-lepton final states of the t<overline> t system and then combined. The combination of the two measurements yields sigma(t (t) over bar) = 67.5 +/- 0.9 (stat.) +/- 2.3 (syst.) +/- 1.1 (lumi.) +/- 0.2 (beam) pb, where the four uncertainties reflect the limited size of the data sample, experimental and theoretical systematic effects, and imperfect knowledge of both the integrated luminosity and the LHC beam energy, giving a total uncertainty of 3.9%. The result is in agreement with theoretical quantum chromodynamic calculations at next-to-next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant, including the resummation of next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic soft-gluon terms, and constrains the parton distribution functions of the proton at large Bjorken-x.

Abstract: The electroweak production of Z(v (v) over bar)gamma in association with two jets is studied in a regime with a photon of high transverse momentum above 150 GeV using proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13TeV at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis uses a data sample with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1) collected by the ATLAS detector during the 2015-2018 LHC data-taking period. This process is an important probe of the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism in the Standard Model and is sensitive to quartic gauge boson couplings via vector-boson scattering. The fiducial Z( v (v) over bar)gamma jj cross section for electroweak production is measured to be 0.77(-0.30)(+0.34) fb and is consistent with the Standard Model prediction. Evidence of electroweak Z( v (v) over bar)gamma jj production is found with an observed significance of 3.2 sigma for the background-only hypothesis, compared with an expected significance of 3.7 sigma. The combination of this result with the previously published ATLAS observation of electroweak Z(v (v) over bar)gamma jj production yields an observed (expected) signal significance of 6.3 sigma (6.6 sigma). Limits on anomalous quartic gauge boson couplings are obtained in the framework of effective field theory with dimension-8 operators.

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).