Abstract: Invariant mass distributions of jet pairs (dijets) produced in LHC proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy root s = 7 TeV have been studied using a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb(-1) recorded in 2011 by ATLAS. Dijet masses up to similar to 4 TeV are observed in the data, and no evidence of resonance production over background is found. Limits are set at 95% C.L. for several new physics hypotheses: excited quarks are excluded for masses below 299 TeV, axigluons are excluded for masses below 3.32 TeV. and colour octet scalar resonances are excluded for masses below 1.92 TeV.

Abstract: The ATLAS experiment at the LHC has measured the centrality dependence of charged particle pseudorapidity distributions over vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2 in lead-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV. In order to include particles with transverse momentum as low as 30 MeV, the data were recorded with the central solenoid magnet off. Charged particles were reconstructed with two algorithms (2-point “tracklets” and full tracks) using information from the pixel detector only. The lead-lead collision centrality was characterized by the total transverse energy in the forward calorimeter in the range 3.2 < vertical bar eta vertical bar< 4.9. Measurements are presented of the per-event charged particle pseudorapidity distribution, dN(ch)/d eta, and the average charged particle multiplicity in the pseudorapidity interval vertical bar eta vertical bar < 0.5 in several intervals of collision centrality. The results are compared to previous mid-rapidity measurements at the LHC and RHIC. The variation of the mid-rapidity charged particle yield per colliding nucleon pair with the number of participants is consistent with lower root s(NN) results. The shape of the dN(ch)/d eta distribution is found to be independent of centrality within the systematic uncertainties of the measurement.

Abstract: Pseudorapidity gap distributions in proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 TeV are studied using a minimum bias data sample with an integrated luminosity of 7.1 μb(-1). Cross sections are measured differentially in terms of Delta eta(F), the larger of the pseudorapidity regions extending to the limits of the ATLAS sensitivity, at eta = +/- 4.9, in which no final state particles are produced above a transverse momentum threshold p(T)(cut). The measurements span the region 0 < Delta eta(F) < 8 for 200 MeV < p(T)(cut) < 800 MeV. At small Delta eta(F), the data test the reliability of hadronisation models in describing rapidity and transverse momentum fluctuations in final state particle production. The measurements at larger gap sizes are dominated by contributions from the single diffractive dissociation process (pp -> Xp), enhanced by double dissociation (pp -> XY) where the invariant mass of the lighter of the two dissociation systems satisfies M-Y less than or similar to 7 GeV. The resulting cross section is ds sigma/d Delta eta(F) approximate to 1 mb for Delta eta(F) greater than or similar to 3. The large rapidity gap data are used to constrain the value of the Pomeron intercept appropriate to triple Regge models of soft diffraction. The cross section integrated over all gap sizes is compared with other LHC inelastic cross section measurements.

Abstract: This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W -> e nu and W -> μnu decays, using data from pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb(-1). Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse momentum, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f(0), f(L) and f(R) over two ranges of W transverse momentum (p(T)(W)) : 35 < p(T)(W) < 50 GeV and p(T)(W) > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For p(T)(W) > 50 GeV, the values of f(0) and f(L) – f(R), averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be: f(0) = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and f(L) – f(R) = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.

Abstract: A measurement of the jet activity in t (t) over bar events produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented, using 2.05 fb(-1) of integrated luminosity collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The t (t) over bar events are selected in the dilepton decay channel with two identified b-jets from the top quark decays. Events are vetoed if they contain an additional jet with transverse momentum above a threshold in a central rapidity interval. The fraction of events surviving the jet veto is presented as a function of this threshold for four different central rapidity interval definitions. An alternate measurement is also performed, in which events are vetoed if the scalar transverse momentum sum of the additional jets in each rapidity interval is above a threshold. In both measurements, the data are corrected for detector effects and compared to the theoretical models implemented in MC@NLO, POWHEG, ALPGEN and SHERPA. The experimental uncertainties are often smaller than the spread of theoretical predictions, allowing deviations between data and theory to be observed in some regions of phase space.