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The standard model of particle physics 1 – 4 describes the known fundamental particles and forces that make up our Universe, with the exception of gravity. One of the central features of the standard model is a field that permeates all of space and interacts with fundamental particles 5 – 9 . The quantum excitation of this field, known as the Higgs field, manifests itself as the Higgs boson, the only fundamental particle with no spin. In 2012, a particle with properties consistent with the Higgs boson of the standard model was observed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN 10 , 11 . Since then, more than 30 times as many Higgs bosons have been recorded by the ATLAS experiment, enabling much more precise measurements and new tests of the theory. Here, on the basis of this larger dataset, we combine an unprecedented number of production and decay processes of the Higgs boson to scrutinize its interactions with elementary particles. Interactions with gluons, photons, and W and Z bosons—the carriers of the strong, electromagnetic and weak forces—are studied in detail. Interactions with three third-generation matter particles (bottom ( b ) and top ( t ) quarks, and tau leptons ( τ )) are well measured and indications of interactions with a second-generation particle (muons, μ ) are emerging. These tests reveal that the Higgs boson discovered ten years ago is remarkably consistent with the predictions of the theory and provide stringent constraints on many models of new phenomena beyond the standard model. Ten years after the discovery of the Higgs boson, the ATLAS  experiment at CERN probes its kinematic properties with a significantly larger dataset from 2015–2018 and provides further insights on its interaction with other known particles.

The luminosity determination for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during Run 2 is presented, with pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy s = 13  TeV. The absolute luminosity scale is determined using van der Meer beam separation scans during dedicated running periods in each year, and extrapolated to the physics data-taking regime using complementary measurements from several luminosity-sensitive detectors. The total uncertainties in the integrated luminosity for each individual year of data-taking range from 0.9% to 1.1%, and are partially correlated between years. After standard data-quality selections, the full Run 2 pp data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 140.1 ± 1.2   fb - 1 , i.e. an uncertainty of 0.83%. A dedicated sample of low-pileup data recorded in 2017–2018 for precision Standard Model physics measurements is analysed separately, and has an integrated luminosity of 338.1 ± 3.1   pb - 1 .

This article documents the muon reconstruction and identification efficiency obtained by the ATLAS experiment for 139 fb-1 of pp collision data at s=13 TeV collected between 2015 and 2018 during Run 2 of the LHC. The increased instantaneous luminosity delivered by the LHC over this period required a reoptimisation of the criteria for the identification of prompt muons. Improved and newly developed algorithms were deployed to preserve high muon identification efficiency with a low misidentification rate and good momentum resolution. The availability of large samples of Z→μμ and J/ψ→μμ decays, and the minimisation of systematic uncertainties, allows the efficiencies of criteria for muon identification, primary vertex association, and isolation to be measured with an accuracy at the per-mille level in the bulk of the phase space, and up to the percent level in complex kinematic configurations. Excellent performance is achieved over a range of transverse momenta from 3 GeV to several hundred GeV, and across the full muon detector acceptance of |η|<2.7.

Jet energy scale and resolution measurements with their associated uncertainties are reported for jets using 36–81 fb-1 of proton–proton collision data with a centre-of-mass energy of s=13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Jets are reconstructed using two different input types: topo-clusters formed from energy deposits in calorimeter cells, as well as an algorithmic combination of charged-particle tracks with those topo-clusters, referred to as the ATLAS particle-flow reconstruction method. The anti-kt jet algorithm with radius parameter R=0.4 is the primary jet definition used for both jet types. This result presents new jet energy scale and resolution measurements in the high pile-up conditions of late LHC Run 2 as well as a full calibration of particle-flow jets in ATLAS. Jets are initially calibrated using a sequence of simulation-based corrections. Next, several in situ techniques are employed to correct for differences between data and simulation and to measure the resolution of jets. The systematic uncertainties in the jet energy scale for central jets (|η|<1.2) vary from 1% for a wide range of high-pT jets (2502.5TeV). The relative jet energy resolution is measured and ranges from (24±1.5)% at 20 GeV to (6±0.5)% at 300 GeV.

The flavour-tagging algorithms developed by the ATLAS Collaboration and used to analyse its dataset of s = 13  TeV pp collisions from Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider are presented. These new tagging algorithms are based on recurrent and deep neural networks, and their performance is evaluated in simulated collision events. These developments yield considerable improvements over previous jet-flavour identification strategies. At the 77% b -jet identification efficiency operating point, light-jet (charm-jet) rejection factors of 170 (5) are achieved in a sample of simulated Standard Model t t ¯ events; similarly, at a c -jet identification efficiency of 30%, a light-jet ( b -jet) rejection factor of 70 (9) is obtained.

Entanglement is a key feature of quantum mechanics 1 – 3 , with applications in fields such as metrology, cryptography, quantum information and quantum computation 4 – 8 . It has been observed in a wide variety of systems and length scales, ranging from the microscopic 9 – 13 to the macroscopic 14 – 16 . However, entanglement remains largely unexplored at the highest accessible energy scales. Here we report the highest-energy observation of entanglement, in top–antitop quark events produced at the Large Hadron Collider, using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √ s  = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 inverse femtobarns (fb) −1 recorded with the ATLAS experiment. Spin entanglement is detected from the measurement of a single observable D , inferred from the angle between the charged leptons in their parent top- and antitop-quark rest frames. The observable is measured in a narrow interval around the top–antitop quark production threshold, at which the entanglement detection is expected to be significant. It is reported in a fiducial phase space defined with stable particles to minimize the uncertainties that stem from the limitations of the Monte Carlo event generators and the parton shower model in modelling top-quark pair production. The entanglement marker is measured to be D  = −0.537 ± 0.002 (stat.) ± 0.019 (syst.) for 340 GeV < m t t ¯ < 380 GeV . The observed result is more than five standard deviations from a scenario without entanglement and hence constitutes the first observation of entanglement in a pair of quarks and the highest-energy observation of entanglement so far. Entanglement was observed in top–antitop quark events by the ATLAS experiment produced at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √ s   = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 fb −1 .

A search for the electroweak production of charginos and sleptons decaying into final states with two electrons or muons is presented. The analysis is based on 139 fb- 1 of proton–proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at s=13 TeV. Three R-parity-conserving scenarios where the lightest neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle are considered: the production of chargino pairs with decays via either W bosons or sleptons, and the direct production of slepton pairs. The analysis is optimised for the first of these scenarios, but the results are also interpreted in the others. No significant deviations from the Standard Model expectations are observed and limits at 95% confidence level are set on the masses of relevant supersymmetric particles in each of the scenarios. For a massless lightest neutralino, masses up to 420 Ge are excluded for the production of the lightest-chargino pairs assuming W-boson-mediated decays and up to 1 TeV for slepton-mediated decays, whereas for slepton-pair production masses up to 700 Ge are excluded assuming three generations of mass-degenerate sleptons. © 2020, CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration.

Electron and photon triggers covering transverse energies from 5  GeV to several TeV are essential for the ATLAS experiment to record signals for a wide variety of physics: from Standard Model processes to searches for new phenomena in both proton–proton and heavy-ion collisions. To cope with a fourfold increase of peak LHC luminosity from 2015 to 2018 (Run 2), to 2.1 × 10 34 cm - 2 s - 1 , and a similar increase in the number of interactions per beam-crossing to about 60, trigger algorithms and selections were optimised to control the rates while retaining a high efficiency for physics analyses. For proton–proton collisions, the single-electron trigger efficiency relative to a single-electron offline selection is at least 75% for an offline electron of 31  GeV , and rises to 96% at 60  GeV ; the trigger efficiency of a 25  GeV leg of the primary diphoton trigger relative to a tight offline photon selection is more than 96% for an offline photon of 30  GeV . For heavy-ion collisions, the primary electron and photon trigger efficiencies relative to the corresponding standard offline selections are at least 84% and 95%, respectively, at 5  GeV above the corresponding trigger threshold.

A search for chargino–neutralino pair production in three-lepton final states with missing transverse momentum is presented. The study is based on a dataset of s=13 TeV pp collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb-1. No significant excess relative to the Standard Model predictions is found in data. The results are interpreted in simplified models of supersymmetry, and statistically combined with results from a previous ATLAS search for compressed spectra in two-lepton final states. Various scenarios for the production and decay of charginos (χ~1±) and neutralinos (χ~20) are considered. For pure higgsino χ~1±χ~20 pair-production scenarios, exclusion limits at 95% confidence level are set on χ~20 masses up to 210 GeV. Limits are also set for pure wino χ~1±χ~20 pair production, on χ~20 masses up to 640 GeV for decays via on-shell W and Z bosons, up to 300 GeV for decays via off-shell W and Z bosons, and up to 190 GeV for decays via W and Standard Model Higgs bosons.

A bstract Combined ATLAS and CMS measurements of the Higgs boson production and decay rates, as well as constraints on its couplings to vector bosons and fermions, are presented. The combination is based on the analysis of five production processes, namely gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or a Z boson or a pair of top quarks, and of the six decay modes H → ZZ, W W , γγ , ττ, bb , and μμ . All results are reported assuming a value of 125 . 09 GeV for the Higgs boson mass, the result of the combined measurement by the ATLAS and CMS experiments. The analysis uses the CERN LHC proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS and CMS experiments in 2011 and 2012, corresponding to integrated luminosities per experiment of approximately 5 fb −1 at s = 7 TeV and 20 fb −1 at s = 8 TeV. The Higgs boson production and decay rates measured by the two experiments are combined within the context of three generic parameterisations: two based on cross sections and branching fractions, and one on ratios of coupling modifiers. Several interpretations of the measurements with more model-dependent parameterisations are also given. The combined signal yield relative to the Standard Model prediction is measured to be 1 . 09 ± 0 . 11. The combined measurements lead to observed significances for the vector boson fusion production process and for the H → ττ decay of 5 . 4 and 5 . 5 standard deviations, respectively. The data are consistent with the Standard Model predictions for all parameterisations considered.