ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aikot, A., Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., et al. (2024). Search for the decay of the Higgs boson to a Z boson and a light pseudoscalar particle decaying to two photons. Phys. Lett. B, 850, 138536–24pp.
Abstract: A search for the decay of the Higgs boson to a Z boson and a light, pseudoscalar particle, a, decaying respectively to two leptons and to two photons is reported. The search uses the full LHC Run 2 proton-proton collision data at root s = 13 TeV, corresponding to 139 fb-1 collected by the ATLAS detector. This is one of the first searches for this specific decay mode of the Higgs boson, and it probes unexplored parameter space in models with axion-like particles (ALPs) and extended scalar sectors. The mass of the a particle is assumed to be in the range 0.1-33 GeV. The data are analysed in two categories: a merged category where the photons from the a decay are reconstructed in the ATLAS calorimeter as a single cluster, and a resolved category in which two separate photons are detected. The main background processes are from Standard Model Z boson production in association with photons or jets. The data are in agreement with the background predictions, and upper limits on the branching ratio of the Higgs boson decay to Za times the branching ratio a -> yy are derived at the 95% confidence level and they range from 0.08% to 2% depending on the mass of the a particle. The results are also interpreted in the context of ALP models.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2024). Observation of Wγγ triboson production in proton-proton collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 848, 138400–24pp.
Abstract: This letter reports the observation of () production in proton-proton collisions. This measurement uses the full Run 2 sample of events recorded at a center-of-mass energy of root= 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb-1. Events with a leptonically-decaying boson and at least two photons are considered. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with an observed and expected significance of 5.6 standard deviations. The inclusive fiducial production cross section of () and () events is measured to be fid = 13.8 +/- 1.1(stat)+2.1-2.0(syst) +/- 0.1(lumi) fb, in agreement with the Standard Model prediction.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aikot, A., Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., et al. (2024). Search for the Zy decay mode of new high-mass resonances in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 848, 138394–23pp.
Abstract: This letter presents a search for narrow, high-mass resonances in the Zy final state with the Z boson decaying into a pair of electrons or muons. The root s = 13 TeV pp collision data were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and have an integrated luminosity of 140 fb-1. The data are found to be in agreement with the Standard Model background expectation. Upper limits are set on the resonance production cross section times the decay branching ratio into Zy. For spin-0 resonances produced via gluon-gluon fusion, the observed limits at 95% confidence level vary between 65.5 fb and 0.6 fb, while for spin-2 resonances produced via gluon-gluon fusion (or quark-antiquark initial states) limits vary between 77.4 (76.1) fb and 0.6 (0.5) fb, for the mass range from 220 GeV to 3400 GeV.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Search for exclusive Higgs and Z boson decays to ωγ and Higgs boson decays to K*γ with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 847, 138292–23pp.
Abstract: Searches for the exclusive decays of the Higgs boson to an omega meson and a photon or a K* meson and a photon can probe flavour-conserving and flavour-violating Higgs boson couplings to light quarks, respectively. Searches for these decays, along with the analogous Z boson decay to an omega meson and a photon, are performed with a pp collision data sample corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 134 fb(-1) collected at root s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The obtained 95% confidence-level upper limits on the respective branching fractions are B(H -> omega gamma) < 5.5 x 10(-4), B(H -> K*gamma) < 2.2 x 10(-4) and B(Z -> omega gamma) < 3.9 x 10(-6). The limits for H -> omega gamma and Z -> omega gamma) are 370 times and 140 times the Standard Model expected values, respectively. The result for Z -> omega gamma corresponds to a two-orders-of-magnitude improvement over the limit obtained by the DELPHI experiment at LEP.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Search for heavy long-lived multi-charged particles in the full LHC Run 2 pp collision data at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 847, 138316–25pp.
Abstract: A search for heavy long-lived multi-charged particles is performed using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Data collected in 2015-2018 at root s = 13 TeV from pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1) are examined. Particles producing anomalously high ionization, consistent with long-lived spin-1/2 massive particles with electric charges from |q| = 2e to |q| = 7e are searched for. No statistically significant evidence of such particles is observed, and 95% confidence level cross-section upper limits are calculated and interpreted as the lower mass limits for a Drell-Yan plus photon-fusion production mode. The least stringent limit, 1060 GeV, is obtained for |q| = 2e particles, and the most stringent one, 1600 GeV, is for |q| = 6e particles.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aikot, A., Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., et al. (2023). Measurement of the Higgs boson mass with H→γγ decays in 140 fb−1 of √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 847, 138315–23pp.
Abstract: The mass of the Higgs boson is measured in the H→γγ decay channel, exploiting the high resolution of the invariant mass of photon pairs reconstructed from the decays of Higgs bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy s√=13 TeV. The dataset was collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1. The measured value of the Higgs boson mass is 125.17±0.11(stat.)±0.09(syst.) GeV and is based on an improved energy scale calibration for photons, whose impact on the measurement is about four times smaller than in the previous publication. A combination with the corresponding measurement using 7 and 8 TeV pp collision ATLAS data results in a Higgs boson mass measurement of 125.22±0.11(stat.)±0.09(syst.) GeV. With an uncertainty of 1.1 per mille, this is currently the most precise measurement of the mass of the Higgs boson from a single decay channel.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Comparison of inclusive and photon-tagged jet suppression in 5.02 TeV Pb+Pb collisions with ATLAS. Phys. Lett. B, 846, 138154–27pp.
Abstract: Parton energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is studied with a measurement of photon-tagged jet production in 1.7 nb-1 of Pb+Pb data and 260 pb-1 of pp data, both at root sNN = 5.02 TeV, with the ATLAS detector. The process pp -> gamma +jet+X and its analogue in Pb+Pb collisions is measured in events containing an isolated photon with transverse momentum (pT) above 50 GeV and reported as a function of jet pT. This selection results in a sample of jets with a steeply falling pT distribution that are mostly initiated by the showering of quarks. The pp and Pb+Pb measurements are used to report the nuclear modification factor, RAA, and the fractional energy loss, Sloss, for photon-tagged jets. In addition, the results are compared with the analogous ones for inclusive jets, which have a significantly smaller quark-initiated fraction. The RAA and Sloss values are found to be significantly different between those for photon-tagged jets and inclusive jets, demonstrating that energy loss in the QGP is sensitive to the colour-charge of the initiating parton. The results are also compared with a variety of theoretical models of colour-charge-dependent energy loss.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Evidence of off-shell Higgs boson production from ZZ leptonic decay channels and constraints on its total width with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 846, 138223–29pp.
Abstract: This Letter reports on a search for off-shell production of the Higgs boson using 139 fb(-1) of pp collision data at root s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The signature is a pair of Z bosons, with contributions from both the production and subsequent decay of a virtual Higgs boson and the interference of that process with other processes. The two observable final states are ZZ -> 4l and Z Z -> 2l2 nu with l = e or mu. In the ZZ -> 4l final state, a dense Neural Network is used to enhance analysis sensitivity with respect to matrix element-based discrimination. The background-only hypothesis is rejected with an observed (expected) significance of 3.3 (2.2) standard deviations, representing experimental evidence for off-shell Higgs boson production. Assuming that no new particles enter the production of the virtual Higgs boson, its total width can be deduced from the measurement of its off-shell production cross-section. The measured total width of the Higgs boson is 4.5(-2.5)(+3.3) MeV, and the observed (expected) upper limit on the total width is found to be 10.5 (10.9) MeV at 95% confidence level.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aikot, A., Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., et al. (2023). Measurement of the cross-sections of the electroweak and total production of a Zγ pair in association with two jets in pp collisions at √s= 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 846, 138222–30pp.
Abstract: This Letter presents the measurement of the fiducial and differential cross-sections of the electroweak production of a Zγ pair in association with two jets. The analysis uses 140 fb−1 of LHC proton-proton collision data taken at s√=13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector during the years 2015-2018. Events with a Z boson candidate decaying into either an e+e− or μ+μ− pair, a photon and two jets are selected. The electroweak component is extracted by requiring a large dijet invariant mass and a large rapidity gap between the two jets and is measured with an observed and expected significance well above five standard deviations. The fiducial pp→Zγjj cross-section for the electroweak production is measured to be 3.6 ± 0.5 fb. The total fiducial cross-section that also includes contributions where the jets arise from strong interactions is measured to be 16.8+2.0−1.8 fb. The results are consistent with the Standard Model predictions. Differential cross-sections are also measured using the same events and are compared with parton-shower Monte Carlo simulations. Good agreement is observed between data and predictions.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., et al. (2023). Search for pair-production of vector-like quarks in pp collision events at root s=13 TeV with at least one leptonically decaying Z boson and a third-generation quark with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 843, 138019–25pp.
Abstract: A search for the pair-production of vector-like quarks optimized for decays into a Z boson and a third-generation Standard Model quark is presented, using the full Run 2 dataset corresponding to 139 fb-1 of pp collisions at & RADIC;s = 13 TeV, collected in 2015-2018 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The targeted final state is characterized by the presence of a Z boson with high transverse momentum, reconstructed from a pair of same-flavour leptons with opposite-sign charges, as well as by the presence of b-tagged jets and high-transverse-momentum large-radius jets reconstructed from calibrated smaller-radius jets. Events with exactly two or at least three leptons are used, which are further categorized by the presence of boosted W, Z, and Higgs bosons and top quarks. The categorization is performed using a neural-network-based boosted object tagger to enhance the sensitivity to signal relative to the background. No significant excess above the background expectation is observed and exclusion limits at 95% confidence level are set on the masses of the vector-like partners T and B of the top and bottom quarks, respectively. The limits depend on the branching ratio configurations and, in the case of 100% branching ratio for T-+ Zt and 100% branching ratio for B-+ Zb, this search sets the most stringent limits to date, allowing mT > 1.60 TeV and mB > 1.42 TeV, respectively.
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