Dr Benjamin Hodkinson

Abstract:

The top-quark Yukawa coupling is extracted from the distribution of the top-quark pair (tt¯$$ t\overline{t} $$) invariant mass in proton-proton collisions using 140 fb−1 of data at s=13$$ \sqrt{s}=13 $$ TeV collected in 2015–2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. In the region near the production threshold, the tt¯$$ t\overline{t} $$ invariant mass spectrum is sensitive to electroweak virtual corrections, including contributions from Higgs boson exchange, thereby providing sensitivity to the top-quark Yukawa coupling. This is the first measurement in ATLAS that aims to obtain this coupling exploiting this approach. The tt¯$$ t\overline{t} $$ system is reconstructed in the single-lepton final state, requiring exactly one isolated electron or muon and at least four jets with at least two identified as originating from b-quarks. The measured Yukawa coupling is found to be in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction. An upper limit on the top-quark Yukawa coupling strength of Yt< 2.1 relative to the Standard Model prediction is observed at 95% confidence level, consistent with the expected sensitivity.

Abstract:

Jet flavour tagging enables the identification of jets originating from heavy-flavour quarks in proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, playing a critical role in its physics programmes. This paper presents GN2, a transformer-based flavour tagging algorithm deployed by the ATLAS Collaboration that represents a different methodology compared to previous approaches. Designed to classify jets based on the flavour of their constituent particles, GN2 processes low-level tracking information in an end-to-end architecture and incorporates physics-informed auxiliary training objectives to enhance both interpretability and performance. Its performance is validated in both simulation and collision data. The measured c-jet (light-jet) rejection in data is improved by a factor of 3.5 (1.8) for a 70% b-jet tagging efficiency, compared to the previous algorithm. GN2 provides substantial benefits for physics analyses involving heavy-flavour jets, such as measurements of Higgs boson pair production and the couplings of bottom and charm quarks to the Higgs boson, and demonstrates the impact of advanced machine learning methods in experimental particle physics.

Abstract:

This paper presents the first observation of top-quark pair production in association with two photons ( t t ¯ γ γ ). The measurement is performed in the single-lepton decay channel using proton–proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb − 1 recorded during Run 2 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The t t ¯ γ γ production cross section, measured in a fiducial phase space based on particle-level kinematic criteria for the lepton, photons, and jets, is found to be 2 . 42 − 0.53 + 0.58 fb , corresponding to an observed significance of 5.2 standard deviations. Additionally, the ratio of the production cross section of t t ¯ γ γ to top-quark pair production in association with one photon is determined, yielding ( 3 . 30 − 0.65 + 0.70 ) × 10 − 3 .

Abstract:

This paper presents a search for physics beyond the Standard Model targeting a heavy resonance visible in the invariant mass of the lepton-jet system. The analysis focuses on final states with a high-energy lepton and jet, and is optimised for the resonant production of leptoquarks — a novel production mode mediated by the lepton content of the proton originating from quantum fluctuations. Four distinct and orthogonal final states are considered: e+light jet, μ+light jet, e+b-jet, and μ+b-jet, constituting the first search at the Large Hadron Collider for resonantly produced leptoquarks with couplings to electrons and muons. Events with an additional same-flavour lepton, as expected from higher-order diagrams in the signal process, are also included in each channel. The search uses proton-proton collision data from the full Run 2, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1 at a centre-of-mass energy of s=13 TeV, and from a part of Run 3 (2022–2023), corresponding to 55 fb−1 at s=13.6 TeV. No significant excess over Standard Model predictions is observed. The results are interpreted as exclusion limits on scalar leptoquark S~1 production, substantially improving upon previous ATLAS constraints from leptoquark pair production for large coupling values. The excluded S~1 mass ranges depend on the coupling strength, reaching up to 3.4 TeV for quark-lepton couplings yde = 1.0, and up to 4.3 TeV, 3.1 TeV, and 2.8 TeV for ysμ, ybe, and ybμ couplings set to 3.5, respectively.