Abstract: This paper describes the trigger and offline reconstruction, identification and energy calibration algorithms for hadronic decays of tau leptons employed for the data collected from pp collisions in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC center-of-mass energy root s = 8 TeV. The performance of these algorithms is measured in most cases with Z decays to tau leptons using the full 2012 dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1). An uncertainty on the offline reconstructed tau energy scale of 2-4%, depending on transverse energy and pseudorapidity, is achieved using two independent methods. The offline tau identification efficiency is measured with a precision of 2.5% for hadronically decaying tau leptons with one associated track, and of 4% for the case of three associated tracks, inclusive in pseudorapidity and for a visible transverse energy greater than 20 GeV. For hadronic tau lepton decays selected by offline algorithms, the tau trigger identification efficiency is measured with a precision of 2-8%, depending on the transverse energy. The performance of the tau algorithms, both offline and at the trigger level, is found to be stable with respect to the number of concurrent proton-proton interactions and has supported a variety of physics results using hadronically decaying tau leptons at ATLAS.

Abstract: Results of a search for decays of massive particles to fully hadronic final states are presented. This search uses 20.3 fb(-1) of data collected by the ATLAS detector in root s = 8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the LHC. Signatures based on high jet multiplicities without requirements on the missing transverse momentum are used to search for R-parity-violating supersymmetric gluino pair production with subsequent decays to quarks. The analysis is performed using a requirement on the number of jets, in combination with separate requirements on the number of b-tagged jets, as well as a topological observable formed from the scalar sum of the mass values of large-radius jets in the event. Results are interpreted in the context of all possible branching ratios of direct gluino decays to various quark flavors. No significant deviation is observed from the expected Standard Model backgrounds estimated using jet counting as well as data-driven templates of the total-jet-mass spectra. Gluino pair decays to ten or more quarks via intermediate neutralinos are excluded for a gluino with mass m((g) over tilde) < 1 TeV for a neutralino mass m(<(chi)over tilde>10) = 500 GeV. Direct gluino decays to six quarks are excluded for m((g) over tilde) < 917 GeV for light-flavor final states, and results for various flavor hypotheses are presented.

Abstract: A measurement is presented of the (tt) over bar inclusive production cross section in pp collisions at a center-ofmass energy of pffisffiffi root s = 8 TeV using data collected by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement was performed in the lepton + jets final state using a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1). The cross section was obtained using a likelihood discriminant fit and b-jet identification was used to improve the signal-to-background ratio. The inclusive (tt) over bar production cross section was measured to be 260 +/- 1(stat)(-23)(+22)(stat) +/- 8(lumi) +/- 4(beam) pb assuming a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV, in good agreement with the theoretical prediction of 253(-15)(+13) pb. The (tt) over bar -> (e, mu) + jets production cross section in the fiducial region determined by the detector acceptance is also reported.