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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.

The large rate of multiple simultaneous proton–proton 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 s√=8 TeV. \\nThe 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.

A bstract A search for Higgs boson pair production in the b b ¯ b b ¯ final state is carried out with up to 36.1 fb −1 of LHC proton-proton collision data collected at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector in 2015 and 2016. Three benchmark signals are studied: a spin-2 graviton decaying into a Higgs boson pair, a scalar resonance decaying into a Higgs boson pair, and Standard Model non-resonant Higgs boson pair production. Two analyses are carried out, each implementing a particular technique for the event reconstruction that targets Higgs bosons reconstructed as pairs of jets or single boosted jets. The resonance mass range covered is 260–3000 GeV. The analyses are statistically combined and upper limits on the production cross section of Higgs boson pairs times branching ratio to b b ¯ b b ¯ are set in each model. No significant excess is observed; the largest deviation of data over prediction is found at a mass of 280 GeV, corresponding to 2.3 standard deviations globally. The observed 95% confidence level upper limit on the non-resonant production is 13 times the Standard Model prediction.

The efficiency to identify jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) is measured using a high purity sample of dileptonic top quark-antiquark pairs (tt¯) selected from the 36.1 fb−1 of data collected by the ATLAS detector in 2015 and 2016 from proton-proton collisions produced by the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy s√=13 TeV. Two methods are used to extract the efficiency from tt¯ events, a combinatorial likelihood approach and a tag-and-probe method. A boosted decision tree, not using b-tagging information, is used to select events in which two b-jets are present, which reduces the dominant uncertainty in the modelling of the flavour of the jets. The efficiency is extracted for jets in a transverse momentum range from 20 to 300 GeV, with data-to-simulation scale factors calculated by comparing the efficiency measured using collision data to that predicted by the simulation. The two methods give compatible results, and achieve a similar level of precision, measuring data-to-simulation scale factors close to unity with uncertainties ranging from 2% to 12% depending on the jet transverse momentum.

A search for the decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson into a bb¯¯ pair when produced in association with a W or Z boson is performed with the ATLAS detector. The analysed data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1, were collected in proton-proton collisions in Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Final states containing zero, one and two charged leptons (electrons or muons) are considered, targeting the decays Z → νν, W → ℓν and Z → ℓℓ. For a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV, an excess of events over the expected background from other Standard Model processes is found with an observed significance of 3.5 standard deviations, compared to an expectation of 3.0 standard deviations. This excess provides evidence for the Higgs boson decay into b-quarks and for its production in association with a vector boson. The combination of this result with that of the Run 1 analysis yields a ratio of the measured signal events to the Standard Model expectation equal to 0.90 ± 0.18(stat.) − 0.19 + 0.21 (syst.). Assuming the Standard Model production cross-section, the results are consistent with the value of the Yukawa coupling to b-quarks in the Standard Model.

Combined analyses of the Higgs boson production and decay rates as well as its coupling strengths to vector bosons and fermions are presented. The combinations include the results of the analyses of the H→γγ,ZZ∗,WW∗,Zγ,bb¯,ττ and μμ decay modes, and the constraints on the associated production with a pair of top quarks and on the off-shell coupling strengths of the Higgs boson. The results are based on the LHC proton-proton collision datasets, with integrated luminosities of up to 4.7 fb−1 at s√=7 TeV and 20.3 fb−1 at s√=8 TeV, recorded by the ATLAS detector in 2011 and 2012. Combining all production modes and decay channels, the measured signal yield, normalised to the Standard Model expectation, is 1.18+0.15−0.14. The observed Higgs boson production and decay rates are interpreted in a leading-order coupling framework, exploring a wide range of benchmark coupling models both with and without assumptions on the Higgs boson width and on the Standard Model particle content in loop processes. The data are found to be compatible with the Standard Model expectations for a Higgs boson at a mass of 125.36 GeV for all models considered.

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb-1 of \\(\\sqrt{s{\\mathrm{}}} = 8\\) TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT>120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between EmissT>150 GeV and EmissT>700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. Results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presented.

A search for Higgs boson pair production in the bb¯¯WW∗ decay mode is performed in the bb¯¯ℓνqq final state using 36.1 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. No evidence of events beyond the background expectation is found. Upper limits on the non-resonant pp → HH production cross section of 10 pb and on the resonant production cross section as a function of the HH invariant mass are obtained. Resonant production limits are set for scalar and spin-2 graviton hypotheses in the mass range 500 to 3000 GeV.

The production of two prompt J/ψ mesons, each with transverse momenta pT>8.5 GeV and rapidity |y|<2.1, is studied using a sample of proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 11.4 fb−1 collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The differential cross-section, assuming unpolarised J/ψ production, is measured as a function of the transverse momentum of the lower-pTJ/ψ meson, di-J/ψpT and mass, the difference in rapidity between the two J/ψ mesons, and the azimuthal angle between the two J/ψ mesons. The fraction of prompt pair events due to double parton scattering is determined by studying kinematic correlations between the two J/ψ mesons. The total and double parton scattering cross-sections are compared with predictions. The effective cross-section of double parton scattering is measured to be σeff=6.3±1.6(stat)±1.0(syst) mb.

Measurements of normalized differential cross-sections of top-quark pair production are presented as a function of the top-quark, t t ¯ system and event-level kinematic observables in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s = 8 TeV . The observables have been chosen to emphasize the t t ¯  production process and to be sensitive to effects of initial- and final-state radiation, to the different parton distribution functions, and to non-resonant processes and higher-order corrections. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb - 1 , recorded in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in the lepton+jets channel, requiring exactly one charged lepton and at least four jets with at least two of the jets tagged as originating from a  b -quark. The measured spectra are corrected for detector effects and are compared to several Monte Carlo simulations. The results are in fair agreement with the predictions over a wide kinematic range. Nevertheless, most generators predict a harder top-quark transverse momentum distribution at high values than what is observed in the data. Predictions beyond NLO accuracy improve the agreement with data at high top-quark transverse momenta. Using the current settings and parton distribution functions, the rapidity distributions are not well modelled by any generator under consideration. However, the level of agreement is improved when more recent sets of parton distribution functions are used.