Abstract: The results of a search for charged Higgs bosons decaying to a T lepton and a neutrino. H-+/- -> T-+/-nu, are presented. The analysis is based on 19.5 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at root s = 8 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Charged Higgs bosons are searched for in events consistent with top-quark pair production or in associated production with a top quark, depending on the considered H-+/- mass. The final state is characterised by the presence of a hadronic T decay, missing transverse momentum, b-tagged jets, a hadronically decaying W boson, and the absence of any isolated electrons or unions with high transverse momenta. The data are consistent with the expected background from Standard Model processes. A statistical analysis leads to 95% confidence-level upper limits on the product of branching ratios B(t -> bH(+/-)) x B(H-+/- -> T-+/-nu), between 0.23% and 1.3% for charged Higgs boson masses in the range 80 160 GeV. lit also leads to 95% confidence-level upper limits on the production cross section times branching ratio, sigma(pp -> tH(+/-) + X) x B(H-+/--> T(+/-)v), between 0.76 pb and 4.5 fb, for charged Higgs boson masses ranging from 180 GeV to 1000 GeV. In the context of different scenarios of the Minimal Supersymnietric Standard Model, these results exclude nearly all values of tan beta above one for charged Higgs boson masses between 80 GeV and 160 GeV, and exclude a region of parameter space with high tan beta for H-+/- masses between 200 GeV and 250 GeV.

Abstract: Simultaneous measurements of the t (t) over bar, W+W-, and Z/gamma* -> tau tau production cross-sections using an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb(-1) of pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC are presented. Events are selected with two high transverse momentum leptons consisting of an oppositely charged electron and muon pair. The three processes are separated using the distributions of the missing transverse momentum of events with zero and greater than zero jet multiplicities. Measurements of the fiducial cross-section are presented along with results that quantify for the first time the underlying correlations in the predicted and measured cross-sections due to proton parton distribution functions. These results indicate that the correlated next-to-leading-order predictions for t (t) over bar and Z/gamma* -> tau tau underestimate the data, while those at next-to-next-to-leading-order generally describe the data well. The full cross-sections are measured to be sigma(t (t) over bar) = 181.2 +/- 2.8(-9.5)(+9.7) +/- 3.3 +/- 3.3 pb, sigma(W+W-) = 53.3 +/- 2.7(-8.0)(+7.3) +/- 1.0 +/- 0.5 pb, and sigma(Z/gamma* -> tau tau) = 1174 +/- 24(-87)(+72) +/- 21 +/- 9 pb, where the cited uncertainties are due to statistics, systematic effects, luminosity and the LHC beam energy measurement, respectively. The W+W- measurement includes the small contribution from Higgs boson decays, H -> W+W-.

Abstract: A measurement of spin correlation in t (t) over bar production is presented using data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1). The correlation between the top and antitop quark spins is extracted from dilepton t (t) over bar events by using the difference in the azimuthal angle between the two charged leptons in the laboratory frame. In the helicity basis the measured degree of correlation corresponds to A(helicity) = 0.38 +/- 0.04, in agreement with the standard model prediction. A search is performed for pair production of top squarks with masses close to the top quark mass decaying to predominantly right-handed top quarks and a light neutralino, the lightest supersymmetric particle. Top squarks with masses between the top quark mass and 191 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level.