Professor Claire Gwenlan

Abstract:

This paper presents searches for the direct pair production of charged light-flavour sleptons, each decaying into a stable neutralino and an associated Standard Model lepton. The analyses focus on the challenging “corridor” region, where the mass difference, Δ𝑚, between the slepton (𝑒˜ or 𝜇˜) and the lightest neutralino (𝜒˜ 0 1 ) is less or similar to the mass of the 𝑊 boson, 𝑚(𝑊), with the aim to close a persistent gap in sensitivity to models with Δ𝑚 ≲ 𝑚(𝑊). Events are required to contain a high-energy jet, significant missing transverse momentum, and two same-flavour opposite-sign leptons (𝑒 or 𝜇). The analysis uses 𝑝 𝑝 collision data at √ 𝑠 = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1 . Several kinematic selections are applied, including a set of boosted decision trees. These are each optimised for different Δ𝑚 to provide expected sensitivity for the first time across the full Δ𝑚 corridor. The results are generally consistent with the Standard Model, with the most significant deviations observed with a local significance of 2.0 𝜎 in the selectron search, and 2.4 𝜎 in the smuon search. While these deviations weaken the observed exclusion reach in some parts of the signal parameter space, the previously present sensitivity gap to this corridor is largely reduced. Constraints at the 95% confidence level are set on simplified models of selectron and smuon pair production, where selectrons (smuons) with masses up to 300 (350) GeV can be excluded for Δ𝑚 between 2 GeV and 100 GeV.

Abstract:

Measurements of the total and differential Higgs boson production cross-sections, via WH and ZH associated production using H → WW* → ℓνℓν and H → WW* → ℓνjj decays, are presented. The analysis uses proton-proton events delivered by the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector between 2015 and 2018. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1. The sum of the WH and ZH cross-sections times the H → WW* branching fraction is measured to be 0.44−0.09+0.10stat.−0.05+0.06syst. pb, in agreement with the Standard Model prediction. Higgs boson production is further characterised through measurements of the differential cross-section as a function of the transverse momentum of the vector boson and in the framework of Simplified Template Cross-Sections.

Abstract:

A measurement is presented of elliptic ( $v_2$ ) and triangular ( $v_3$ ) azimuthal anisotropy coefficients for charged particles produced in $\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{{}_{\text{NN}}}}=5.02 \text{TeV}$ using a dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $0.44{\text{nb}}^{-1}$ collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2018. The values of $v_2$ and $v_3$ are measured for charged particles over a wide range of transverse momentum ( $p_{\text{T}}$ ), 1–400 $\text{GeV}$ , and $\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}$ collision centrality, 0–60%, using the scalar-product and multiparticle cumulant methods. These methods are sensitive to event-by-event fluctuations and nonflow effects in the measurements of azimuthal anisotropies. Positive values of $v_2$ are observed up to a $p_{\text{T}}$ of approximately 100 $\text{GeV}$ from both methods across all centrality intervals. Positive values of $v_3$ are observed up to approximately 25 $\text{GeV}$ using both methods, though the application of the three-subevent technique to the multiparticle cumulant method leads to significant changes at the highest $p_{\text{T}}$ . At high $p_{\text{T}}$ ( $p_{\text{T}}⪆10 \text{GeV}$ ), charged particles are dominantly from jet fragmentation. These jets, and hence the measurements presented here, are sensitive to the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma produced in $\mathrm{Pb}+\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions.

Abstract:

Jets with different radius parameters R are an important tool for probing quantum chromodynamics processes at different angular scales. Jets with small R=0.2$$R=0.2$$ are instrumental in measurements of the substructure of large-R jets resulting from collimated hadronic decays of energetic W,  Z,  and Higgs bosons, top quarks, and of potential new resonances. This paper presents measurements of the energy scale, resolution, and associated uncertainties of jets with radius parameters R=0.2$$R=0.2$$ and 0.6,  obtained using the ATLAS detector. The results are based on 37fb-1$$37~\text {fb}^{-1}$$ of proton–proton collision data from the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of s=13$$\sqrt{s}=13$$ TeV. A new in situ method for measuring jet energy scale differences between data and Monte Carlo simulations is presented. The systematic uncertainties in the jet energy scale for central jets (|η|<1.2)$$(|\eta | < 1.2)$$ typically vary from 1% to about 5% as a function of |η|$$|\eta |$$ at very low transverse momentum, pT,$$p_{\text {T}},$$ of around 20 GeV for both R=0.2$$R=0.2$$ and 0.6 jets. The relative energy resolution ranges from (35±6)%$$(35 \pm 6)\%$$ at pT=20$$p_{\text {T}} = 20$$ GeV to (6±0.5)%$$(6 \pm 0.5)\%$$ at pT=300$$p_{\text {T}} = 300$$ GeV for central R=0.2$$R=0.2$$ jets, and is found to be slightly worse for R=0.6$$R=0.6$$ jets. Finally, the effect of close-by hadronic activity on the jet energy scale is investigated and is found to be well modelled by the ATLAS Monte Carlo simulations.

Abstract:

We determine the value of the strong coupling αs and study its running over a wide range of scales as probed by the dijet production process at hadron colliders, based on an NNLO QCD analysis of LHC dijet data. From a large subset of these data a value of αs(mZ) =0.1178 ± 0.0022 is obtained for the strong coupling at the scale of the Z-boson mass mZ, using the invariant mass of the dijet system to select the scale where is probed. The combination of different data sets enhances the reach and precision of the analysis in the multi-TeV range and allows for the first determination of up to scales of 7. Complementing the LHC data with dijet cross sections measured at the HERA electron–proton collider, the kinematic range is extended to test the running of the strong coupling towards smaller scales. Our results exhibit excellent agreement with predictions based on the renormalization group equation of QCD, and represent a comprehensive test of the asymptotic behavior of QCD, spanning more than three orders of magnitude in energy scale.