Abstract: Differential cross-sectionmeasurements are presented for the electroweak production of two jets in association with a Z boson. These measurements are sensitive to the vector-boson fusion production mechanism and provide a fundamental test of the gauge structure of the Standard Model. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data collected by ATLAS at root s = 13 TeV and with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1). The differential cross-sections are measured in the Z -> l(+)l(-) decay channel (l = e, mu) as a function of four observables: the dijet invariant mass, the rapidity interval spanned by the two jets, the signed azimuthal angle between the two jets, and the transverse momentum of the dilepton pair. The data are corrected for the effects of detector inefficiency and resolution and are sufficiently precise to distinguish between different state-of-the-art theoretical predictions calculated using Powheg+Pythia8, Herwig7+Vbfnlo and Sherpa 2.2. The differential cross-sections are used to search for anomalous weak-boson self-interactions using a dimension-six effective field theory. Themeasurement of the signed azimuthal angle between the two jets is found to be particularly sensitive to the interference between the Standard-Model and dimension-six scattering amplitudes and provides a direct test of charge-conjugation and parity invariance in the weak-boson self-interactions.

Abstract: Measurements of single-, double-, and triple-differential cross-sections are presented for boosted top-quark pair-production in 13 TeV proton-proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The top quarks are observed through their hadronic decay and reconstructed as large-radius jets with the leading jet having transverse momentum (p(T)) greater than 500 GeV. The observed data are unfolded to remove detector effects. The particle-level cross-section, multiplied by the t (t) over bar branching fraction and measured in a fiducial phase space defined by requiring the leading and second-leading jets to have p(T)> 500 GeV and p(T)> 350 GeV, respectively, is 331 +/- 3(stat.) +/- 39(syst.) fb. This is approximately 20% lower than the prediction of 398(-49)(+48) fb by Powheg+Pythia 8 with next-to-leading-order (NLO) accuracy but consistent within the theoretical uncertainties. Results are also presented at the parton level, where the effects of top-quark decay, parton showering, and hadronization are removed such that they can be compared with fixed-order next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) calculations. The parton-level cross-section, measured in a fiducial phase space similar to that at particle level, is 1.94 +/- 0.02(stat.) +/- 0.25(syst.) pb. This agrees with the NNLO prediction of 1.96(-0.17)(+0.02) pb. Reasonable agreement with the differential cross-sections is found for most NLO models, while the NNLO calculations are generally in better agreement with the data. The differential cross-sections are interpreted using a Standard Model effective field-theory formalism and limits are set on Wilson coefficients of several four-fermion operators.

Abstract: This paper presents a measurement of forward-forward and forward-central dijet azimuthal angular correlations and conditional yields in proton-proton (pp) and proton-lead (p + Pb) collisions as a probe of the nuclear gluon density in regions where the fraction of the average momentum per nucleon carried by the parton entering the hard scattering is low. In these regions, gluon saturation can modify the rapidly increasing parton distribution function of the gluon. The analysis utilizes 25 pb(-1) of pp data and 360 μb(-1) of p + Pb data, both at root S-NN = 5.02 TeV, collected in 2015 and 2016, respectively, with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is performed in the center-of-mass frame of the nucleon-nucleon system in the rapidity range between -4.0 and 4.0 using the two highest transverse-momentum jets in each event, with the highest transverse-momentum jet restricted to the forward rapidity range. No significant broadening of azimuthal angular correlations is observed for forward-forward or forward-central dijets in p + Pb compared to pp collisions. For forward-forward jet pairs in the proton-going direction, the ratio of conditional yields in p + Pb collisions to those in pp collisions is suppressed by approximately 20%, with no significant dependence on the transverse momentum of the dijet system. No modification of conditional yields is observed for forward-central dijets.

Abstract: This Letter describes a search for narrowly resonant new physics using a machine -learning anomaly detection procedure that does not rely on signal simulations for developing the analysis selection. Weakly supervised learning is used to train classifiers directly on data to enhance potential signals. The targeted topology is dijet events and the features used for machine learning are the masses of the two jets. The resulting analysis is essentially a three-dimensional search A -> BC, for m(A) similar to O(TeV), m(B), m(C) similar to O(100 GeV) and B, C are reconstructed as large-radius jets, without paying a penalty associated with a large trials factor in the scan of the masses of the two jets. The full run 2 root s = 13 TeV pp collision dataset of 139 fb(-1) recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used for the search. There is no significant evidence of a localized excess in the dijet invariant mass spectrum between 1.8 and 8.2 TeV, Cross-section limits for narrow -width A, B, and C particles vary with m(A), m(B), and m(C). For example, when m(A) = 3 TeV and m(B) greater than or similar to 200 GeV, a production cross section between 1 and 5 fb is excluded at 95% confidence level, depending on m(C). For certain masses, these limits are up to 10 times more sensitive than those obtained by the inclusive dijet search. These results are complementary to the dedicated searches for the case that B and C are standard model bosons.

Abstract: This paper presents a direct measurement of the decay width of the top quark using t (t) over bar events in the lepton+jets final state. The data sample was collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb(-1). The decay width of the top quark is measured using a template fit to distributions of kinematic observables associated with the hadronically and semileptonically decaying top quarks. The result, Gamma(t) = 1.76 +/- 0.33 (stat.) (+0.79)(-0.68) (syst.) GeV for a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV, is consistent with the prediction of the Standard Model.