Abstract: A search for excited electrons produced in pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV via a contact interaction q (q) over bar -> ee* is presented. The search uses 36.1 fb(-1) of data collected in 2015 and 2016 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Decays of the excited electron into an electron and a pair of quarks (eq (q) over bar) are targeted in final states with two electrons and two hadronic jets, and decays via a gauge interaction into a neutrino and a W boson (nu W) are probed in final states with an electron, missing transverse momentum, and a large-radius jet consistent with a hadronically decaying W boson. No significant excess is observed over the expected backgrounds. Upper limits are calculated for the pp -> ee* -> eeq (q) over bar and pp -> ee* -> e nu W production cross sections as a function of the excited electron mass m(e)* at 95% confidence level. The limits are translated into lower bounds on the compositeness scale parameter Lambda of the model as a function of m(e)*. For m(e)* < 0.5 TeV, the lower bound for Lambda is 11 TeV. In the special case of m(e)* = Lambda, the values of m(e)* < 4.8 TeV are excluded. The presented limits on Lambda are more stringent than those obtained in previous searches.

Abstract: A novel search for exotic decays of the Higgs boson into pairs of long-lived neutral particles, each decaying into a bottom quark pair, is performed using 139 fb(-1)of root s = 13 TeV proton-proton collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events consistent with the production of a Higgs boson in association with a leptonically decaying Z boson are analysed. Long-lived particle (LLP) decays are reconstructed from inner-detector tracks as displaced vertices with high mass and track multiplicity relative to Standard Model processes. The analysis selection requires the presence of at least two displaced vertices, effectively suppressing Standard Model backgrounds. The residual background contribution is estimated using a data-driven technique. No excess over Standard Model predictions is observed, and upper limits are set on the branching ratio of the Higgs boson to LLPs. Branching ratios above 10% are excluded at 95% confidence level for LLP mean proper lifetimes c tau as small as 4 mm and as large as 100 mm. For LLP masses below 40 GeV, these results represent the most stringent constraint in this lifetime regime.

Abstract: A search for flavor-changing neutral-current couplings between a top quark, an up or charm quark, and a Z boson is presented, using proton-proton collision data at root s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analyzed data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1). The search targets both single-top- quark events produced as gq -> tZ (with q = u, c) and top-quark-pair events, with one top quark decaying through the t -> Zq channel. The analysis considers events with three leptons (electrons or muons), a b-tagged jet, possible additional jets, and missing transverse momentum. The data are found to be consistent with the background-only hypothesis and 95% confidence-level limits on the t -> Zq branching ratios, assuming only tensor operators of the Standard Model effective field theory framework contribute to the tZq vertices. These are 6.2 x 10(-5) (13 x 10(-5)) for t -> Zu (t -> Zc) for a left-handed tZq coupling, and 6.6 x 10(-5) (12 x 10(-5)) in the case of a right-handed coupling. These results are interpreted as 95% CL upper limits on the strength of the corresponding couplings, yielding limits for |C-uW((13))*| and |C-uB((13))*| (|C-uW((31))| and |C-uB((31))|) of 0.15 (0.16), and limits for |C-uW((23))*| and |C-uB((23))*| (|C-uW((32))| and |C-uB((32))|) of 0.22 (0.21), assuming a new-physics energy scale Lambda(NP) of 1 TeV.