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Detailed measurements of the electron performance of the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported, using decays of the Z , W and J / ψ particles. Data collected in 2010 at are used, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of almost 40 pb −1 . The inter-alignment of the inner detector and the electromagnetic calorimeter, the determination of the electron energy scale and resolution, and the performance in terms of response uniformity and linearity are discussed. The electron identification, reconstruction and trigger efficiencies, as well as the charge misidentification probability, are also presented.

FastJet is a C++ package that provides a broad range of jet finding and analysis tools. It includes efficient native implementations of all widely used 2 → 1 sequential recombination jet algorithms for pp and [e.sup.+][e.sup.-] collisions, as well as access to 3rd party jet algorithms through a plugin mechanism, including all currently used cone algorithms. FastJet also provides means to facilitate the manipulation of jet substructure, including some common boosted heavy-object taggers, as well as tools for estimation of pileup and underlying-event noise levels, determination of jet areas and subtraction or suppression of noise in jets.

We present phenomenological results for vector boson pair production at the LHC, obtained using the parton-level next-to-leading order program MCFM. We include the implementation of a new process in the code, pp  →  γγ , and important updates to existing processes. We incorporate fragmentation contributions in order to allow for the experimental isolation of photons in γγ , Wγ , and Zγ production and also account for gluon-gluon initial state contributions for all relevant processes. We present results for a variety of phenomenological scenarios, at the current operating energy of TeV and for the ultimate machine goal, TeV. We investigate the impact of our predictions on several important distributions that enter into searches for new physics at the LHC.

Proton–proton collisions at  TeV and heavy ion collisions at  TeV were produced by the LHC and recorded using the ATLAS experiment’s trigger system in 2010. The LHC is designed with a maximum bunch crossing rate of 40 MHz and the ATLAS trigger system is designed to record approximately 200 of these per second. The trigger system selects events by rapidly identifying signatures of muon, electron, photon, tau lepton, jet, and B meson candidates, as well as using global event signatures, such as missing transverse energy. An overview of the ATLAS trigger system, the evolution of the system during 2010 and the performance of the trigger system components and selections based on the 2010 collision data are shown. A brief outline of plans for the trigger system in 2011 is presented.

The simulation software for the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider is being used for large-scale production of events on the LHC Computing Grid. This simulation requires many components, from the generators that simulate particle collisions, through packages simulating the response of the various detectors and triggers. All of these components come together under the ATLAS simulation infrastructure. In this paper, that infrastructure is discussed, including that supporting the detector description, interfacing the event generation, and combining the GEANT4 simulation of the response of the individual detectors. Also described are the tools allowing the software validation, performance testing, and the validation of the simulated output against known physics processes.

We present a global analysis of available data on inclusive structure functions and reduced cross sections measured in electron–proton scattering at small values of Bjorken- x , x <0.01, including the latest data from HERA on reduced cross sections. Our approach relies on the dipole formulation of DIS together with the use of the non-linear running coupling Balitsky–Kovchegov equation for the description of the small- x dynamics. We improve our previous studies by including the heavy quark (charm and beauty) contribution to the reduced cross sections, and also by considering a variable flavor scheme for the running of the coupling. We obtain a good description of the data, with the fit parameters remaining stable with respect to our previous analyses where only light quarks were considered. The inclusion of the heavy quark contributions resulted in a good description of available experimental data for the charm component of the structure function and reduced cross section provided the initial transverse distribution of heavy quarks was allowed to differ from (more specifically, to have a smaller radius than) that of the light flavors.

The CRESST-II cryogenic Dark Matter search, aiming at detection of WIMPs via elastic scattering off nuclei in CaWO 4 crystals, completed 730 kg days of data taking in 2011. We present the data collected with eight detector modules, each with a two-channel readout; one for a phonon signal and the other for coincidently produced scintillation light. The former provides a precise measure of the energy deposited by an interaction, and the ratio of scintillation light to deposited energy can be used to discriminate different types of interacting particles and thus to distinguish possible signal events from the dominant backgrounds. Sixty-seven events are found in the acceptance region where a WIMP signal in the form of low energy nuclear recoils would be expected. We estimate background contributions to this observation from four sources: (1) “leakage” from the e / γ -band (2) “leakage” from the α -particle band (3) neutrons and (4)  206 Pb recoils from 210 Po decay. Using a maximum likelihood analysis, we find, at a statistical significance of more than 4 σ , that these sources alone are not sufficient to explain the data. The addition of a signal due to scattering of relatively light WIMPs could account for this discrepancy, and we determine the associated WIMP parameters.

We study three-dimensional conformal field theories described by U ( N ) Chern–Simons theory at level k coupled to massless fermions in the fundamental representation. By solving a Schwinger–Dyson equation in light-cone gauge, we compute the exact planar free energy of the theory at finite temperature on ℝ 2 as a function of the ’t Hooft coupling λ = N / k . Employing a dimensional reduction regularization scheme, we find that the free energy vanishes at | λ |=1; the conformal theory does not exist for | λ |>1. We analyze the operator spectrum via the anomalous conservation relation for higher spin currents, and in particular show that the higher spin currents do not develop anomalous dimensions at leading order in 1/ N . We present an integral equation whose solution in principle determines all correlators of these currents at leading order in 1/ N and present explicit perturbative results for all three-point functions up to two loops. We also discuss a light-cone Hamiltonian formulation of this theory where a W ∞ algebra arises. The maximally supersymmetric version of our theory is ABJ model with one gauge group taken to be U (1), demonstrating that a pure higher spin gauge theory arises as a limit of string theory.

We present the program package GoSam which is designed for the automated calculation of one-loop amplitudes for multi-particle processes in renormalisable quantum field theories. The amplitudes, which are generated in terms of Feynman diagrams, can be reduced using either D-dimensional integrand-level decomposition or tensor reduction. GoSam can be used to calculate one-loop QCD and/or electroweak corrections to Standard Model processes and offers the flexibility to link model files for theories Beyond the Standard Model. A standard interface to programs calculating real radiation is also implemented. We demonstrate the flexibility of the program by presenting examples of processes with up to six external legs attached to the loop.

We describe likelihood-based statistical tests for use in high energy physics for the discovery of new phenomena and for construction of confidence intervals on model parameters. We focus on the properties of the test procedures that allow one to account for systematic uncertainties. Explicit formulae for the asymptotic distributions of test statistics are derived using results of Wilks and Wald. We motivate and justify the use of a representative data set, called the “Asimov data set”, which provides a simple method to obtain the median experimental sensitivity of a search or measurement as well as fluctuations about this expectation.