Abstract: A search for new phenomena with top quark pairs in final states with one isolated electron or muon, multiple jets, and large missing transverse momentum is performed. Signal regions are designed to search for two-, three-, and four-body decays of the directly pair-produced supersymmetric partner of the top quark (stop). Additional signal regions are designed specifically to search for spin-0 mediators that are produced in association with a pair of top quarks and decay into a pair of dark-matter particles. The search is performed using the Large Hadron Collider proton-proton collision dataset at a centre-of-mass energy of s = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector from 2015 to 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1). No significant excess above the Standard Model background is observed, and limits at 95% confidence level are set in the stop-neutralino mass plane and as a function of the mediator mass or the dark-matter particle mass. Stops are excluded up to 1200 GeV (710 GeV) in the two-body (three-body) decay scenario. In the four-body scenario stops up to 640 GeV are excluded for a stop-neutralino mass difference of 60 GeV. Scalar and pseudoscalar dark-matter mediators are excluded up to 200 GeV when the coupling strengths of the mediator to Standard Model and dark-matter particles are both equal to one and when the mass of the dark-matter particle is 1 GeV.

Abstract: Exclusive dimuon production in ultraperipheral collisions (UPC), resulting from photon-photon interactions in the strong electromagnetic fields of colliding high-energy lead nuclei, PbPb(gamma gamma) -> mu(+) mu(-) (Pb-(*Pb-)(()*())), is studied using L-int = 0.48 nb(-1) of root S-NN = 5.02 TeV lead-lead collision data at the LHC with the ATLAS detector. Dimuon pairs are measured in the fiducial region p(T,mu) > 4 GeV, vertical bar eta(mu)vertical bar < 2.4, invariant m(mu mu) > 10 GeV, and p(T,mu mu) <2 GeV. The primary background from single-dissociative processes is extracted from the data using a template fitting technique. Differential cross sections are presented as a function of m(mu mu), absolute pair rapidity (vertical bar y(mu mu)vertical bar), scattering angle in the dimuon rest frame (vertical bar cos v*(mu mu)vertical bar), and the colliding photon energies. The total cross section of the UPC gamma gamma -> mu(+) mu(-) process in the fiducial volume is measured to be sigma(mu mu)(fid) = 34.1 +0.3(stat.)+0.7(syst.) μb. Generally good agreement is found with calculations from STARlight, which incorporate the leading-order Breit-Wheeler process with no final-state effects, albeit differences between the measurements and theoretical expectations are observed. In particular, the measured cross sections at larger vertical bar y(mu mu)vertical bar are found to be about 10-20% larger in data than in the calculations, suggesting the presence of larger fluxes of photons in the initial state. Modification of the dimuon cross sections in the presence of forward and/or backward neutron production is also studied and is found to be associated with a harder incoming photon spectrum, consistent with expectations.

Abstract: This paper presents a search for dark matter in the context of a two-Higgs-doublet model together with an additional pseudoscalar mediator, a, which decays into the dark-matter particles. Processes where the pseudoscalar mediator is produced in association with a single top quark in the 2HDM+a model are explored for the first time at the LHC. Several final states which include either one or two charged leptons (electrons or muons) and a significant amount of missing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis is based on proton-proton collision data collected with the ATLAS experiment at root s = 13 TeV during LHC Run 2 (2015-2018), corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1). No significant excess above the Standard Model predictions is found. The results are expressed as 95% confidence-level limits on the parameters of the signal models considered.