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 measurement of the phase difference between the short- and long-distance contributions to the decay is performed by analysing the dimuon mass distribution. The analysis is based on pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 collected by the LHCb experiment in 2011 and 2012. The long-distance contribution to the decay is modelled as a sum of relativistic Breit-Wigner amplitudes representing different vector meson resonances decaying to muon pairs, each with their own magnitude and phase. The measured phases of the and resonances are such that the interference with the short-distance component in dimuon mass regions far from their pole masses is small. In addition, constraints are placed on the Wilson coefficients, and , and the branching fraction of the short-distance component is measured.

Abstract: The discovery of the D*(s0)(2317) and D-s1(2460) resonances in the charmed-strange meson spectra revealed that formerly successful constituent quark models lose predictability in the vicinity of two-meson thresholds. The emergence of non-negligible effects due to meson loops requires an explicit evaluation of the interplay between Q (q) over bar and (Q (q) over bar)(q (q) over bar) Fock components. In contrast to the c (s) over bar sector, there is no experimental evidence of J(P) = 0(+), 1(+) bottom-strange states yet. Motivated by recent lattice studies, in this work the heavy-quark partners of the D*(s0)(2317) and D-s1(2460) states are analyzed within a heavy meson chiral unitary scheme. As a novelty, the coupling between the constituent quark-model P-wave (B) over bar (s) scalar and axial mesons and the (B) over bar (()*()) K channels is incorporated employing an effective interaction, consistent with heavy-quark spin symmetry, constrained by the lattice energy levels.

Abstract: A key research question at the Large Hadron Collider is the test of models of new physics. Testing if a particular parameter set of such a model is excluded by LHC data is a challenge: it requires time consuming generation of scattering events, simulation of the detector response, event reconstruction, cross section calculations and analysis code to test against several hundred signal regions defined by the ATLAS and CMS experiments. In the BSM-AI project we approach this challenge with a new idea. A machine learning tool is devised to predict within a fraction of a millisecond if a model is excluded or not directly from the model parameters. A first example is SUSY-AI, trained on the phenomenological supersymmetric standard model (pMSSM). About 300,000 pMSSM model sets – each tested against 200 signal regions by ATLAS – have been used to train and validate SUSY-AI. The code is currently able to reproduce theATLAS exclusion regions in 19 dimensions with an accuracy of at least 93%. It has been validated further within the constrained MSSM and the minimal natural supersymmetric model, again showing high accuracy. SUSY-AI and its future BSM derivatives will help to solve the problem of recasting LHC results for any model of new physics. SUSY-AI can be downloaded from http://susyai.hepforge.org/. An on-line interface to the program for quick testing purposes can be found at http://www.susy-ai.org/.

Abstract: Measurements of jet activity in top-quark pair events produced in proton-proton collisions are presented, using 3.2 fb of pp collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are chosen by requiring an opposite-charge pair and two b-tagged jets in the final state. The normalised differential cross-sections of top-quark pair production are presented as functions of additional-jet multiplicity and transverse momentum, . The fraction of signal events that do not contain additional jet activity in a given rapidity region, the gap fraction, is measured as a function of the threshold for additional jets, and is also presented for different invariant mass regions of the system. All measurements are corrected for detector effects and presented as particle-level distributions compared to predictions with different theoretical approaches for QCD radiation. While the kinematics of the jets from top-quark decays are described well, the generators show differing levels of agreement with the measurements of observables that depend on the production of additional jets.