Professor Amanda Cooper-Sarkar

Abstract:

The ATLAS detector is installed in its experimental cavern at Point 1 of the CERN Large Hadron Collider. During Run 2 of the LHC, a luminosity of ℒ = 2 × 1034 cm-2 s-1 was routinely achieved at the start of fills, twice the design luminosity. For Run 3, accelerator improvements, notably luminosity levelling, allow sustained running at an instantaneous luminosity of ℒ = 2 × 1034 cm-2 s-1, with an average of up to 60 interactions per bunch crossing. The ATLAS detector has been upgraded to recover Run 1 single-lepton trigger thresholds while operating comfortably under Run 3 sustained pileup conditions. A fourth pixel layer 3.3 cm from the beam axis was added before Run 2 to improve vertex reconstruction and b-tagging performance. New Liquid Argon Calorimeter digital trigger electronics, with corresponding upgrades to the Trigger and Data Acquisition system, take advantage of a factor of 10 finer granularity to improve triggering on electrons, photons, taus, and hadronic signatures through increased pileup rejection. The inner muon endcap wheels were replaced by New Small Wheels with Micromegas and small-strip Thin Gap Chamber detectors, providing both precision tracking and Level-1 Muon trigger functionality. Trigger coverage of the inner barrel muon layer near one endcap region was augmented with modules integrating new thin-gap resistive plate chambers and smaller-diameter drift-tube chambers. Tile Calorimeter scintillation counters were added to improve electron energy resolution and background rejection. Upgrades to Minimum Bias Trigger Scintillators and Forward Detectors improve luminosity monitoring and enable total proton-proton cross section, diffractive physics, and heavy ion measurements. These upgrades are all compatible with operation in the much harsher environment anticipated after the High-Luminosity upgrade of the LHC and are the first steps towards preparing ATLAS for the High-Luminosity upgrade of the LHC. This paper describes the Run 3 configuration of the ATLAS detector.

Abstract:

We present performance studies of the Time-of-Flight (ToF) subdetector of the ATLAS Forward Proton (AFP) detector at the LHC. Efficiencies and resolutions are measured using high-statistics data samples collected at low and moderate pile-up in 2017, the first year when the detectors were installed on both sides of the interaction region. While low efficiencies are observed, of the order of a few percent, the resolutions of the two ToF detectors measured individually are 21 ps and 28 ps, yielding an expected resolution of the longitudinal position of the interaction, z vtx, in the central ATLAS detector of 5.3 ± 0.6 mm. This is in agreement with the observed width of the distribution of the difference between z vtx, measured independently by the central ATLAS tracker and by the ToF detector, of 6.0 ± 2.0 mm.

Abstract:

Precision measurements of electron reconstruction, identification, and isolation efficiencies and photon identification efficiencies are presented. They use the full Run 2 data sample collected by the ATLAS experiment in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV during the years 2015–2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. The measured electron identification efficiencies have uncertainties that are around 30%–50% smaller than the previous Run 2 results due to an improved methodology and the inclusion of more data. A better pile-up subtraction method leads to electron isolation efficiencies that are more independent of the amount of pile-up activity. Updated photon identification efficiencies are also presented, using the full Run 2 data. When compared to the previous measurement, a 30%–40% smaller uncertainty is observed on the photon identification efficiencies, thanks to the increased amount of available data.

Abstract:

Three searches for the direct production of τ-sleptons or charginos and neutralinos in final states with at least two hadronically decaying τ-leptons are presented. For chargino and neutralino production, decays via intermediate τ-sleptons or W and h bosons are considered. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the expected Standard Model background is observed and supersymmetric particle mass limits at 95% confidence level are obtained in simplified models. For direct production of χ~1+χ~1−, chargino masses are excluded up to 970 GeV, while χ~1± and χ~20 masses up to 1160 GeV (330 GeV) are excluded for χ~1±χ~20/χ~1+χ~1− production with subsequent decays via τ-sleptons (W and h bosons). Masses of τ-sleptons up to 500 GeV are excluded for mass degenerate τ~L, R scenarios and up to 425 GeV for τ~L-only scenarios. Sensitivity to τ~R-only scenarios from the ATLAS experiment is presented here for the first time, with τ~R masses excluded up to 350 GeV.