Abstract: A measurement of the calorimeter response to isolated charged hadrons in the ATLAS detector at the LHC is presented. This measurement is performed with 3.2 nb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at root s = 7 TeV from 2010 and 0.1 nb(-1) of data at root s = 8 TeV from 2012. A number of aspects of the calorimeter response to isolated hadrons are explored. After accounting for energy deposited by neutral particles, there is a 5% discrepancy in the modelling, using various sets of GEANT4 hadronic physics models, of the calorimeter response to isolated charged hadrons in the central calorimeter region. The description of the response to anti-protons at low momenta is found to be improved with respect to previous analyses. The electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters are also examined separately, and the detector simulation is found to describe the response in the hadronic calorimeter well. The jet energy scale uncertainty and correlations in scale between jets of different momenta and pseudorapidity are derived based on these studies. The uncertainty is 2-5% for jets with transverse momenta above 2 TeV, where this method provides the jet energy scale uncertainty for ATLAS.

Abstract: Measurements of normalized differential cross-sections of top-quark pair production are presented as a function of the top-quark, t (t) over bar system and event-level kinematic observables in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV. The observables have been chosen to emphasize the t (t) over bar production process and to be sensitive to effects of initial-and final-state radiation, to the different parton distribution functions, and to non-resonant processes and higher-order corrections. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1), recorded in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in the lepton+jets channel, requiring exactly one charged lepton and at least four jets with at least two of the jets tagged as originating from a b-quark. The measured spectra are corrected for detector effects and are compared to several Monte Carlo simulations. The results are in fair agreement with the predictions over a wide kinematic range. Nevertheless, most generators predict a harder top-quark transverse momentum distribution at high values than what is observed in the data. Predictions beyond NLO accuracy improve the agreement with data at high top-quark transverse momenta. Using the current settings and parton distribution functions, the rapidity distributions are not well modelled by any generator under consideration. However, the level of agreement is improved when more recent sets of parton distribution functions are used.

Abstract: Two searches for new phenomena in final states containing a same-flavour opposite-sign lepton (electron or muon) pair, jets, and large missing transverse momentum are presented. These searches make use of proton-proton collision data, collected during 2015 and 2016 at a centre-of-mass energy root s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the large hadron collider, which correspond to an integrated luminosity of 14.7 fb(-1). Both searches target the pair production of supersymmetric particles, squarks or gluinos, which decay to final states containing a same-flavour opposite-sign lepton pair via one of two mechanisms: a leptonically decaying Z boson in the final state, leading to a peak in the dilepton invariant-mass distribution around the Z boson mass; and decays of neutralinos (e.g.. (chi) over tilde (0)(2) -> l(+)l(-1)(chi) over tilde (0)(1)), yielding a kinematic endpoint in the dilepton invariant-mass spectrum. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectation. Results are interpreted in simplified models of gluino-pair (squark-pair) production, and provide sensitivity to gluinos (squarks) with masses as large as 1.70 TeV (980 GeV).

Abstract: A search for singly produced vector-like Q quarks, where Q can be either a T quark with charge +2/3 or a Y quark with charge -4/3, is performed in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1) and was produced with a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV. This analysis targets Q -> Wb decays where the W boson decays leptonically. A veto on massive large-radius jets is used to reject the dominant t (t) over bar background. The reconstructed Q-candidate mass, ranging from 0.4 to 1.2 TeV, is used in the search to discriminate signal from background processes. No significant deviation from the Standard Model expectation is observed, and limits are set on the Q -> Wb cross-section times branching ratio. The results are also interpreted as limits on the QWb coupling and the mixing with the Standard Model sector for a singlet T quark or a Y quark from a doublet. T quarks with masses below 0.95 TeV are excluded at 95 % confidence level, assuming a unit coupling and a BR(T -> Wb) = 0.5, whereas the expected limit is 1.10 TeV.

Abstract: This paper presents a dedicated search for exotic decays of the Higgs boson to a pair of new spin-zero particles, H -> aa, where the particle a decays to b-quarks and has a mass in the range of 20-60 GeV. The search is performed in events where the Higgs boson is produced in associationwith aW boson, giving rise to a signature of a lepton (electron or muon), missing transverse momentum, and multiple jets from b-quark decays. The analysis is based on the full dataset of pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV recorded in 2015 by theATLAS detector at theCERNLargeHadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb(-1). No significant excess of events above the Standard Model prediction is observed, and a 95% confidence-level upper limit is derived for the product of the production cross section for pp -> WH times the branching ratio for the decay H -> aa -> 4b. The upper limit ranges from 6.2 pb for an a-boson mass m(a) = 20 GeV to 1.5 pb for m(a) = 60 GeV.