Professor Claire Gwenlan

Abstract:

A measurement is presented of the inclusive cross-section for b-jet production in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s=7 TeV. The analysis uses the data sample collected by the ATLAS experiment in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 36 pb-1. The event selection requires a Z boson decaying into high pT electrons or muons, and at least one b-jet, identified by its displaced vertex, with transverse momentum pT>25 GeV and rapidity |y|<2.1. After subtraction of background processes, the yield is extracted from the vertex mass distribution of the candidate b-jets. The ratio of this cross-section to the inclusive Z cross-section (the average number of b-jets per Z event) is also measured. Both results are found to be in good agreement with perturbative QCD predictions at next-to-leading order. © 2011 CERN.

Abstract:

The ATLAS detector at the LHC is used to search for high-mass states, such as heavy charged gauge bosons (Wʹ), decaying to a charged lepton (electron or muon) and a neutrino. Results are presented based on the analysis of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb−1. No excess beyond Standard Model expectations is observed. AWʹ with Sequential Standard Model couplings is excluded at the 95% credibility level for masses up to 2.55 TeV. Excited chiral bosons (W*) with equivalent coupling strength are excluded for masses up to 2.42 TeV.

Abstract:

A combination of the inclusive diffractive cross section measurements made by the H1 and ZEUS Collaborations at HERA is presented. The analysis uses samples of diffractive deep inelastic ep scattering data at a centre-of-mass energy √s= 318 Gev where leading protons are detected by dedicated spectrometers. Correlations of systematic uncertainties are taken into account, resulting in an improved precision of the cross section measurement which reaches 6 % for the most precise points. The combined data cover the range 2.5 < Q2 < 200 GeV2 in photon virtuality, 0.00035 < xP < 0.09 in proton fractional momentum loss, 0.09 <{pipe}t{pipe}< 0.55 GeV2 in squared four-momentum transfer at the proton vertex and 0.0018 < β <0.816 in β=x/xP, where x is the Bjorken scaling variable. © 2012 The Author(s).

Abstract:

This paper presents measurements of the polarization ofW bosons in top quark decays, derived from tt̄ events with missing transverse momentum, one charged lepton and at least four jets, or two charged leptons and at least two jets. Data from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV were collected with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 1.04 fb-1. The measured fractions of longitudinally, left- and right-handed polarization are F0 = 0.67 ± 0.07, FL = 0.32 ± 0.04 and FR = 0.01 ± 0.05, in agreement with the Standard Model predictions. As the polarization of the W bosons in top quark decays is sensitive to the Wtb vertex Lorentz structure and couplings, the measurements were used to set limits on anomalous contributions to the Wtb couplings. © CERN.

Abstract:

A search for the Standard Model Higgs boson decaying into a pair of τ leptons is reported. The analysis is based on a data sample of proton-proton collisions collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7fb-1. No significant excess over the expected background is observed in the Higgs boson mass range of 100-150 GeV. The observed (expected) upper limits on the cross section times the branching ratio for H → τ+τ- are found to be between 2.9 (3.4) and 11.7 (8.2) times the Standard Model prediction for this mass range.