ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for direct top squark pair production in final states with two tau leptons in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(2), 81–30pp.
Abstract: A search for direct pair production of the supersymmetric partner of the top quark, decaying via a scalar tau to a nearly massless gravitino, has been performed using 20 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at root s = 8 TeV. The data were collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2012. Top squark candidates are searched for in events with either two hadronically decaying tau leptons, one hadronically decaying tau and one light lepton, or two light leptons. No significant excess over the Standard Model expectation is found. Exclusion limits at 95 % confidence level are set as a function of the top squark and scalar tau masses. Depending on the scalar tau mass, ranging from the 87 GeV LEP limit to the top squark mass, lower limits between 490 and 650 GeV are placed on the top squark mass within the model considered.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for single top-quark production via flavour-changing neutral currents at 8TeV with the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(2), 55–30pp.
Abstract: A search for single top-quark production via flavour-changing neutral current processes from gluon plus up- or charm-quark initial states in proton-proton collisions at the LHC is presented. Data collected with the ATLAS detector in 2012 at a centre-of-mass energy of 8TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1) are used. Candidate events for a top quark decaying into a lepton, a neutrino and a jet are selected and classified into signal- and background-like candidates using a neural network. No signal is observed and an upper limit on the production cross-section multiplied by the t -> Wb branching fraction is set. The observed 95% CL limit is sigma(qg -> t) x B(t -> Wb) < 3.4 pb and the expected 95% CL limit is sigma(qg -> t) x B(t -> Wb) < 2.9 pb. The observed limit can be interpreted as upper limits on the coupling constants of the flavour-changing neutral current interactions divided by the scale of new physics kappa(ugt)/Lambda < 5.8 x 10(-3) TeV-1 and kappa(cgt)/Lambda < 13x10(-3) TeV and on the branching fractions B(t -> ug) < 4.0 x 10(-5) and B(t -> cg) < 20 x 10(-5).
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Measurement of the differential cross-sections of prompt and non-prompt production of J/psi and psi(2S) in pp collisions at root s=7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(5), 283–47pp.
Abstract: The production rates of prompt and non-prompt J/psi and psi(2S) mesons in their dimuon decay modes are measured using 2.1 and 11.4 fb(-1) of data collected with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, in proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 and 8 respectively. Production cross-sections for prompt as well as non-prompt sources, ratios of psi(2S) to J/psi production, and the fractions of non-prompt production for J/psi and psi(2S) are measured as a function of meson transverse momentum and rapidity. The measurements are compared to theoretical predictions.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Performance of pile-up mitigation techniques for jets in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV using the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(11), 581–36pp.
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.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). A new method to distinguish hadronically decaying boosted Z bosons from W bosons using the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(5), 238–33pp.
Abstract: The distribution of particles inside hadronic jets produced in the decay of boosted W and Z bosons can be used to discriminate such jets from the continuum background. Given that a jet has been identified as likely resulting from the hadronic decay of a boosted W or Z boson, this paper presents a technique for further differentiating Z bosons from W bosons. The variables used are jet mass, jet charge, and a b-tagging discriminant. A likelihood tagger is constructed from these variables and tested in the simulation of W' -> WZ for bosons in the transverse momentum range 200 GeV < p(T) < 400 GeV in root s = 8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. For Z-boson tagging efficiencies of epsilon(Z) = 90, 50, and 10 %, one can achieve W+-boson tagging rejection factors (1/epsilon(W+)) of 1.7, 8.3 and 1000, respectively. It is not possible to measure these efficiencies in the data due to the lack of a pure sample of high p(T), hadronically decaying Z bosons. However, the modelling of the tagger inputs for boosted W bosons is studied in data using a t (t) over bar -enriched sample of events in 20.3 fb(-1) of data at root s = 8 TeV. The inputs are well modelled within uncertainties, which builds confidence in the expected tagger performance.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for invisible decays of a Higgs boson using vector-boson fusion in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 172–44pp.
Abstract: A search for a Higgs boson produced via vector-boson fusion and decaying into invisible particles is presented, using 20.3 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 8TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. For a Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, assuming the Standard Model production cross section, an upper bound of 0.28 is set on the branching fraction of H -> invisible at 95% confidence level, where the expected upper limit is 0.31. The results are interpreted in models of Higgs-portal dark matter where the branching fraction limit is converted into upper bounds on the dark-matter-nucleon scattering cross section as a function of the dark-matter particle mass, and compared to results from the direct dark-matter detection experiments.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Search for a high-mass Higgs boson decaying to a W boson pair in pp collisions at root s=8TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 032–66pp.
Abstract: A search for a high-mass Higgs boson H is performed in the H -> WW -> l nu l nu and H -> WW -> l nu qq decay channels using pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1) collected at root s = 8TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. No evidence of a high-mass Higgs boson is found. Limits on sigma(H) x BR(H -> WW) as a function of the Higgs boson mass m(H) are determined in three different scenarios: one in which the heavy Higgs boson has a narrow width compared to the experimental resolution, one for a width increasing with the boson mass and modeled by the complex-pole scheme following the same behavior as in the Standard Model, and one for intermediate widths. The upper range of the search is m(H) = 1500 GeV for the narrow-width scenario and m(H) = 1000 GeV for the other two scenarios. The lower edge of the search range is 200{300 GeV and depends on the analysis channel and search scenario. For each signal interpretation, individual and combined limits from the two WW decay channels are presented. At m(H) = 1500 GeV, the highest-mass point tested, sigma(H) x BR(H -> WW) for a narrow-width Higgs boson is constrained to be less than 22 fb and 6.6 fb at 95% CL for the gluon fusion and vector-boson fusion production modes, respectively.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). A search for prompt lepton-jets in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 02(2), 062–51pp.
Abstract: A search is presented for a new, light boson with a mass of about 1 GeV and decaying promptly to jets of collimated electrons and/or muons (lepton-jets). The analysis is performed with 20.3 fb(-1) of data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. Events are required to contain at least two lepton-jets. This study finds no statistically significant deviation from predictions of the Standard Model and places 95% confidence-level upper limits on the contribution of new phenomena beyond the SM, incuding SUSY-portal and Higgs-portal models, on the number of events with lepton-jets.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Measurement of the CP-violating phase phi(s) and the B-s(0) meson decay width difference with B-s(0) -> J/psi phi decays in ATLAS. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 147–45pp.
Abstract: A measurement of the B-s(0) decay parameters in the B-s(0) -> J/psi/phi channel using an integrated luminosity of 14.3 fb(-1) collected by the ATLAS detector from 8TeV pp collisions at the LHC is presented. The measured parameters include the CP-violating phase phi(s), the decay width Gamma(s) and the width di ff erence between the mass eigenstates Delta Gamma(s). The values measured for the physical parameters are statistically combined with those from 4.9 fb-1 of 7TeV data, leading to the following: phi(s) = -0.090 +/- 0.078 (stat.) +/- 0.041 (syst.) rad Delta Gamma s = 0.085 +/- 0.011 (stat.) +/- 0.007 (syst.) ps(-1) Gamma(s) = 0.675 +/- 0.003 (stat.) +/- 0.003 (syst:) ps(-1). In the analysis the parameter Delta Gamma(s) is constrained to be positive. Results for phi(s) and Delta Gamma(s) are also presented as 68% and 95% likelihood contours in the phi(s)-Delta Gamma(s) plane. Also measured in this decay channel are the transversity amplitudes and corresponding strong phases. All measurements are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fernandez Martinez, P., et al. (2016). Performance of b-jet identification in the ATLAS experiment. J. Instrum., 11, P04008–126pp.
Abstract: The identification of jets containing b hadrons is important for the physics programme of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Several algorithms to identify jets containing b hadrons are described, ranging from those based on the reconstruction of an inclusive secondary vertex or the presence of tracks with large impact parameters to combined tagging algorithms making use of multi-variate discriminants. An independent b-tagging algorithm based on the reconstruction of muons inside jets as well as the b-tagging algorithm used in the online trigger are also presented. The b-jet tagging efficiency, the c-jet tagging efficiency and the mistag rate for light flavour jets in data have been measured with a number of complementary methods. The calibration results are presented as scale factors defined as the ratio of the efficiency (or mistag rate) in data to that in simulation. In the case of b jets, where more than one calibration method exists, the results from the various analyses have been combined taking into account the statistical correlation as well as the correlation of the sources of systematic uncertainty.
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