Abstract: The ATLAS Fast TracKer (FTK) was designed to provide full tracking for the ATLAS high-level trigger by using pattern recognition based on Associative Memory (AM) chips and fitting in high-speed field programmable gate arrays. The tracks found by the FTK are based on inputs from all modules of the pixel and silicon microstrip trackers. The as-built FTK system and components are described, as is the online software used to control them while running in the ATLAS data acquisition system. Also described is the simulation of the FTK hardware and the optimization of the AM pattern banks. An optimization for long-lived particles with large impact parameter values is included. A test of the FTK system with the data playback facility that allowed the FTK to be commissioned during the shutdown between Run 2 and Run 3 of the LHC is reported. The resulting tracks from part of the FTK system covering a limited eta-phi region of the detector are compared with the output from the FTK simulation. It is shown that FTK performance is in good agreement with the simulation.

Abstract: The ATLAS experiment relies on real-time hadronic jet reconstruction and b-tagging to record fully hadronic events containing b-jets. These algorithms require track reconstruction, which is computationally expensive and could overwhelm the high-level-trigger farm, even at the reduced event rate that passes the ATLAS first stage hardware-based trigger. In LHC Run 3, ATLAS has mitigated these computational demands by introducing a fast neural-network-based b-tagger, which acts as a low-precision filter using input from hadronic jets and tracks. It runs after a hardware trigger and before the remaining high-level-trigger reconstruction. This design relies on the negligible cost of neural-network inference as compared to track reconstruction, and the cost reduction from limiting tracking to specific regions of the detector. In the case of Standard Model HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar, a key signature relying on b-jet triggers, the filter lowers the input rate to the remaining high-level trigger by a factor of five at the small cost of reducing the overall signal efficiency by roughly 2%.

Abstract: This paper presents the electron and photon energy calibration obtained with the ATLAS detector using 140 fb-1 of LHC proton -proton collision data recorded at -Js = 13 TeV between 2015 and 2018. Methods for the measurement of electron and photon energies are outlined, along with the current knowledge of the passive material in front of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter. The energy calibration steps are discussed in detail, with emphasis on the improvements introduced in this paper. The absolute energy scale is set using a large sample of Z -boson decays into electron -positron pairs, and its residual dependence on the electron energy is used for the first time to further constrain systematic uncertainties. The achieved calibration uncertainties are typically 0.05% for electrons from resonant Z -boson decays, 0.4% at ET – 10 GeV, and 0.3% at ET – 1 TeV; for photons at ET <^>' 60 GeV, they are 0.2% on average. This is more than twice as precise as the previous calibration. The new energy calibration is validated using .11tfr -, ee and radiative Z -boson decays.

Abstract: Leptons with essentially the same properties apart from their mass are grouped into three families (or flavours). The number of leptons of each flavour is conserved in interactions, but this is not imposed by fundamental principles. Since the formulation of the standard model of particle physics, the observation of flavour oscillations among neutrinos has shown that lepton flavour is not conserved in neutrino weak interactions. So far, there has been no experimental evidence that this also occurs in interactions between charged leptons. Such an observation would be a sign of undiscovered particles or a yet unknown type of interaction. Here the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN reports a constraint on lepton-flavour-violating effects in weak interactions, searching for Z-boson decays into a tau lepton and another lepton of different flavour with opposite electric charge. The branching fractions for these decays are measured to be less than 8.1 x 10(-6) (e tau) and 9.5 x 10(-6) (mu tau) at the 95% confidence level using 139 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV and 20.3 fb(-1) at root s = 8 TeV. These results supersede the limits from the Large Electron-Positron Collider experiments conducted more than two decades ago.

Abstract: Constraints on selected mediator-based dark matter models and a scalar dark energy model using up to 37 fb(-1) = 13 TeV pp collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2015-2016 are summarised in this paper. The results of experimental searches in a variety of final states are interpreted in terms of a set of spin-1 and spin-0 single-mediator dark matter simplified models and a second set of models involving an extended Higgs sector plus an additional vector or pseudo-scalar mediator. The searches considered in this paper constrain spin-1 leptophobic and leptophilic mediators, spin-0 colour-neutral and colour-charged mediators and vector or pseudo-scalar mediators embedded in extended Higgs sector models. In this case, also = 8 TeV pp collision data are used for the interpretation of the results. The results are also interpreted for the first time in terms of light scalar particles that could contribute to the accelerating expansion of the universe (dark energy).