Professor Chris Hays

Abstract:

A search for the electroweak pair production of charged sleptons and weak gauginos decaying into final states with two leptons is performed using 4.7 fb-1 of proton-proton collision data at s=7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. No significant excesses are observed with respect to the prediction from Standard Model processes. In the scenario of direct slepton production, if the sleptons decay directly into the lightest neutralino, left-handed slepton masses between 85 and 195 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level for a 20 GeV neutralino. Chargino masses between 110 and 340 GeV are excluded in the scenario of direct production of wino-like chargino pairs decaying into the lightest neutralino via an intermediate on-shell charged slepton for a 10 GeV neutralino. The results are also interpreted in the framework of the phenomenological minimal supersymmetric Standard Model. © 2012 CERN.

Abstract:

This Letter reports a search for a heavy particle that decays to WW using events produced in pp collisions at s=7TeV. The data were recorded in 2011 by the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb-1. WW→ℓνℓ'ν' (ℓ, ℓ'=e or μ) final states are considered and the distribution of the transverse mass of the WW candidates is found to be consistent with Standard Model expectations. Upper limits on the production cross section times branching ratio into W boson pairs are set for Randall-Sundrum and bulk Randall-Sundrum gravitons, which result in observed 95% CL lower limits on the masses of the two particles of 1.23 TeV and 0.84 TeV, respectively. © 2012 CERN.

Abstract:

A search for nonresonant new phenomena, originating from either contact interactions or large extra spatial dimensions, has been carried out using events with two isolated electrons or muons. These events, produced at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV, were recorded by the ATLAS detector. The data sample, collected throughout 2011, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 and 5.0 fb-1 in the e+e - and μ+μ- channels, respectively. No significant deviations from the Standard Model expectation are observed. Using a Bayesian approach, 95% confidence level lower limits ranging from 9.0 to 13.9 TeV are placed on the energy scale of ℓℓqq contact interactions in the left-left isoscalar model. Lower limits ranging from 2.4 to 3.9 TeV are also set on the string scale in large extra dimension models. After combining these limits with results from a similar search in the diphoton channel, slightly more stringent limits are obtained.

Abstract:

The lifetime of the Bc- meson is measured using 272 exclusive Bc-→J/ψ(→μ+μ-)π- decays reconstructed in data from proton-antiproton collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 6.7 fb-1 recorded by the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. The lifetime of the Bc- meson is measured to be τ(Bc-)=0.452±0.048(stat)±0.027(syst) ps. This is the first measurement of the Bc- meson lifetime in a fully reconstructed hadronic channel, and it agrees with previous results and has comparable precision. © 2013 American Physical Society.

Abstract:

The ATLAS experiment has observed 1995 Z boson candidates in data corresponding to 0:15 nb-1 of integrated luminosity obtained in the 2011 LHC Pb + Pb run at √SNN = 2.76 TeV. The Z bosons are reconstructed via dielectron and dimuon decay channels, with a background contamination of less than 3%. Results from the two channels are consistent and are combined. Within the statistical and systematic uncertainties, the per-event Z boson yield is proportional to the number of binary collisions estimated by the Glauber model. The elliptic anisotropy of the azimuthal distribution of the Z boson with respect to the event plane is found to be consistent with zero.