Abstract: A summary is presented of ATLAS searches for gluinos and first- and second-generation squarks in final states containing jets and missing transverse momentum, with or without leptons or b-jets, in the root s = 8 TeV data set collected at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012. This paper reports the results of new interpretations and statistical combinations of previously published analyses, as well as a new analysis. Since no significant excess of events over the Standard Model expectation is observed, the data are used to set limits in a variety of models. In all the considered simplified models that assume R-parity conservation, the limit on the gluino mass exceeds 1150 GeV at 95% confidence level, for an LSP mass smaller than 100 GeV. Furthermore, exclusion limits are set for left-handed squarks in a phenomenological MSSM model, a minimal Supergravity/Constrained MSSM model, R-parity-violation scenarios, a minimal gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking model, a natural gauge mediation model, a non-universal Higgs mass model with gaugino mediation and a minimal model of universal extra dimensions.

Abstract: An analysis is presented of events containing jets including at least one b tagged jet, sizeable missing transverse momentum, and at least two leptons including a pair of the same electric charge, with the scalar sum of the jet and lepton transverse momenta being large. A data sample with an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1) of p p collisions at p root s = 8TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used. Standard Model processes rarely produce these final states, but there are several models of physics beyond the Standard Model that predict an enhanced rate of production of such events; the ones considered here are production of vector-like quarks, enhanced fourtop- quark production, pair production of chiral b'-quarks, and production of two positively charged top quarks. Eleven signal regions are defined; subsets of these regions are combined when searching for each class of models. In the three signal regions primarily sensitive to positively charged top quark pair production, the data yield is consistent with the background expectation. There are more data events than expected from background in the set of eight signal regions defined for searching for vector-like quarks and chiral b'-quarks, but the significance of the discrepancy is less than two standard deviations. The discrepancy reaches 2.5 standard deviations in the set of five signal regions defined for searching for four-top-quark production. The results are used to set 95% CL limits on various models.

Abstract: Lepton number violation is searched for at the LHC using same-sign leptons plus jets. The standard lore is that the ratio of same-sign lepton to opposite-sign lepton events, R-ll, is equal to R-ll = 1 (R-ll = 0) for Majorana (Dirac) neutrinos. We clarify under which conditions the ratio Rll can assume values different from 0 and 1, and we argue that the precise value 0 < R-ll < 1 is controlled by the mass splitting versus the width of the quasi-Dirac resonances. A measurement of R-ll not equal 0, 1 would then contain valuable information about the origin of neutrino masses. We consider as an example the inverse seesaw mechanism in a left-right symmetric scenario, which is phenomenologically particularly interesting since all the heavy states in the high energy completion of the model could be within experimental reach. A prediction of this scenario is a correlation between the values of R-ll and the ratio between the rates for heavy neutrino decays into standard model gauge bosons, and into three body final states ljj mediated by off-shell W-R exchange.