Professor Amanda Cooper-Sarkar

Abstract:

This note provides an interim summary of the current recommendations of the PDF4LHC working group for the use of parton distribution functions (PDFs) and of PDF uncertainties at the LHC, for cross section and cross section uncertainty calculations. It also contains a succinct user guide to the computation of PDF uncertainties and correlations using available PDF sets. A companion note (the PDF4LHC Working Group Interim Report) summarizes predictions for benchmark cross sections at the LHC (7 TeV) at NLO using modern PDFs currently available from 6 PDF fitting groups.

Abstract:

A search for new interactions and resonances produced in LHC proton-proton (pp) collisions at a centre-of-mass energy √s = 7 TeV was performed with the ATLAS detector. Using a dataset with an integrated luminosity of 36 pb -1, dijet mass and angular distributions were measured up to dijet masses of ∼3.5TeV and were found to be in good agreement with Standard Model predictions. This analysis sets limits at 95% CL on various models for new physics: an excited quark is excluded for mass between 0.60 and 2.64 TeV, an axigluon hypothesis is excluded for axigluon masses between 0.60 and 2.10 TeV and quantum black holes are excluded in models with six extra space-time dimensions for quantum gravity scales between 0.75 and 3.67 TeV. Production cross section limits as a function of dijet mass are set using a simplified Gaussian signal model to facilitate comparisons with other hypotheses. Analysis of the dijet angular distribution using a novel technique simultaneously employing the dijet mass excludes quark contact interactions with a compositeness scale A below 9.5 TeV. © 2011 CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS Collaboration.

Abstract:

Measurements are presented from proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of s = 0.9, 2.36 and 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events were collected using a single-arm minimumbias trigger. The charged-particle multiplicity, its dependence on transverse momentum and pseudorapidity and the relationship between the mean transverse momentum and charged-particle multiplicity are measured. Measurements in different regions of phase space are shown, providing diffraction-reduced measurements as well as more inclusive ones. The observed distributions are corrected to well-defined phase-space regions, using model-independent corrections. The results are compared to each other and to various Monte Carlo (MC) models, including a new AMBT1 pythia6 tune. In all the kinematic regions considered, the particle multiplicities are higher than predicted by the MC models. The central charged-particle multiplicity per event and unit of pseudorapidity, for tracks with pT < 100 MeV, is measured to be 3.483±0.009 (stat)±0.106 (syst) at s = 0.9 TeV and 5.630±0.003 (stat)±0.169 (syst) at s = 7 TeV. © 2011 CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS Collaboration, published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd for the Institute of Physics and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.

Abstract:

Using the ATLAS detector, a centrality-dependent suppression has been observed in the yield of J/Ψ mesons produced in the collisions of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider. In a sample of minimum-bias lead-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre of mass energy sNN=2.76 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 6.7 μb-1, J/Ψ mesons are reconstructed via their decays to μ+μ- pairs. The measured J/Ψ yield, normalized to the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions, is found to significantly decrease from peripheral to central collisions. The centrality dependence is found to be qualitatively similar to the trends observed at previous, lower energy experiments. The same sample is used to reconstruct Z bosons in the μ+μ- final state, and a total of 38 candidates are selected in the mass window of 66 to 116 GeV. The relative Z yields as a function of centrality are also presented, although no conclusion can be inferred about their scaling with the number of binary collisions, because of limited statistics. This analysis provides the first results on J/Ψ and Z production in lead-lead collisions at the LHC. © 2011 CERN.