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A bstract This article presents searches for the Zγ decay of the Higgs boson and for narrow high-mass resonances decaying to Z γ, exploiting Z boson decays to pairs of electrons or muons. The data analysis uses 36.1 fb −1 of pp collisions at s = 13 recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The data are found to be consistent with the expected Standard Model background. The observed (expected — assuming Standard Model pp → H → Z γ production and decay) upper limit on the production cross section times the branching ratio for pp → H → Z γ is 6.6. (5.2) times the Standard Model prediction at the 95% confidence level for a Higgs boson mass of 125.09 GeV. In addition, upper limits are set on the production cross section times the branching ratio as a function of the mass of a narrow resonance between 250 GeV and 2.4 TeV, assuming spin-0 resonances produced via gluon-gluon fusion, and spin-2 resonances produced via gluon-gluon or quark-antiquark initial states. For high-mass spin-0 resonances, the observed (expected) limits vary between 88 fb (61 fb) and 2.8 fb (2.7 fb) for the mass range from 250 GeV to 2.4 TeV at the 95% confidence level.

Astronomical and cosmological observations suggest that 80% of the matter content of the universe is made up of dark matter. However, except for its gravitational interactions with ordinary matter particles, there is no evidence of its interactions via other known forces. A variety of extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics predict the existence of a weakly interacting massive particle which can account for the existence of dark matter. Even though these hypothetical particles can explain the abundance of dark matter in the universe, previous searches showed no direct evidence of their existence. In this thesis, a search for dark matter production in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is presented. The observation of a new particle compatible with the Standard Model Higgs boson in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC enabled new search channels for dark matter production at particle colliders. This thesis describes a search for dark matter produced in association with a Higgs boson decaying to a bottom quark and an anti-bottom quark (bb¯) with the ATLAS experiment. The search was conducted using proton-proton collision data gathered from 2015 and 2016 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the LHC. The analysis is performed by selecting final states compatible with a Higgs boson decaying to a bb¯ pair recoiling against dark matter particles which are detected as large missing transverse energy. The observations show no significant deviation from Standard Model expectations without dark matter. The results are converted to limits on the parameter space of a Z'-2HDM signal model as well as limits on production cross sections of beyond the Standard Model processes with the same final state signature of a Higgs boson and large missing transverse energy, without any further assumptions.

This paper presents a measurement of the W boson production cross section and the W$^{+}$/W$^{−}$ cross-section ratio, both in association with jets, in proton-proton collisions at $ \\sqrt{s}=8 $ TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is performed in final states containing one electron and missing transverse momentum using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb$^{−1}$. Differential cross sections for events with at least one or two jets are presented for a range of observables, including jet transverse momenta and rapidities, the scalar sum of transverse momenta of the visible particles and the missing transverse momentum in the event, and the transverse momentum of the W boson. For a subset of the observables, the differential cross sections of positively and negatively charged W bosons are measured separately. In the cross-section ratio of W$^{+}$/W$^{−}$ the dominant systematic uncertainties cancel out, improving the measurement precision by up to a factor of nine. The observables and ratios selected for this paper provide valuable input for the up quark, down quark, and gluon parton distribution functions of the proton.