Abstract: The four-lepton (4l, l = e, mu) production cross section is measured in the mass range from 80 to 1000GeV using 20.3 fb(-1)of data in pp collisions at root s = 8 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The 4l events are produced in the decays of resonant Zand Higgs bosons and the nonresonant ZZcontinuum originating from q (q) over bar, gg, and qg initial states. A total of 476 signal candidate events are observed with a background expectation of 26.2 +/- 3.6 events, enabling the measurement of the integrated cross section and the differential cross section as a function of the invariant mass and transverse momentum of the four-lepton system. In the mass range above 180GeV, assuming the theoretical constraint on the q (q) over bar production cross section calculated with perturbative NNLO QCD and NLO electroweak corrections, the signal strength of the gluon-fusion component relative to its leading-order prediction is determined to be mu(gg) = 2.4 +/- 1.0(stat.) +/- 0.5(syst.) +/- 0.8(theory).

Abstract: The cross-section for the production of a single top quark in association with a W boson in proton-proton collisions at is measured. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1), collected by the ATLAS detector in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Events containing two leptons and one central b-jet are selected. The W t signal is separated from the backgrounds using boosted decision trees, each of which combines a number of discriminating variables into one classifier. Production of W t events is observed with a significance of 7.7 sigma. The cross-section is extracted in a profile likelihood fit to the classifier output distributions. The W t cross-section, inclusive of decay modes, is measured to be 23.0 +/- 1.3(stat.) (-aEuro parts per thousand 3.5) (+ 3.2) (syst.)+/- 1.1(lumi.) pb. The measured cross-section is used to extract a value for the CKM matrix element |V (tb) | of 1.01 +/- 0.10 and a lower limit of 0.80 at the 95% confidence level. The cross-section for the production of a top quark and a W boson is also measured in a fiducial acceptance requiring two leptons with p (T) > 25 GeV and |eta| < 2.5, one jet with p (T) > 20 GeV and |eta| < 2.5, and E (T) (miss) > 20 GeV, including both W t and top-quark pair events as signal. The measured value of the fiducial cross-section is 0.85 +/- A 0.01(stat.) (-aEuro parts per thousand 0.07) (+ 0.07) (syst.)+/- 0.03(lumi.) pb.

Abstract: The large rate of multiple simultaneous protonproton interactions, or pile-up, generated by the Large Hadron Collider in Run 1 required the development of many new techniques to mitigate the adverse effects of these conditions. This paper describes the methods employed in the ATLAS experiment to correct for the impact of pile-up on jet energy and jet shapes, and for the presence of spurious additional jets, with a primary focus on the large 20.3 fb(-1) data sample collected at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV. The energy correction techniques that incorporate sophisticated estimates of the average pile-up energy density and tracking information are presented. Jet-to-vertex association techniques are discussed and projections of performance for the future are considered. Lastly, the extension of these techniques to mitigate the effect of pile-up on jet shapes using subtraction and grooming procedures is presented.

Abstract: This article reports on a search for dark matter pair production in association with a Higgs boson decaying to a pair of bottom quarks, using data from 20.3 fb(-1) of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The decay of the Higgs boson is reconstructed as a high-momentum b (b) over bar system with either a pair of small-radius jets, or a single large-radius jet with substructure. The observed data are found to be consistent with the expected Standard Model backgrounds. Model-independent upper limits are placed on the visible cross sections for events with a Higgs boson decaying into b (b) over bar and large missing transverse momentum with thresholds ranging from 150 to 400 GeV. Results are interpreted using a simplified model with a Z' gauge boson decaying into different Higgs bosons predicted in a two-Higgs-doublet model, of which the heavy pseudoscalar Higgs decays into a pair of dark matter particles. Exclusion limits are also presented for the mass scales of various effective field theory operators that describe the interaction between dark matter particles and the Higgs boson.

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.