16 Search Results

Anisotropic flow and radial flow are two key probes of the expansion dynamics and properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). While anisotropic flow has been extensively studied, radial flow, which governs the system’s radial expansion, has received less attention. Notably, direct experimental evidence for the global and collective nature of radial flow fluctuations has been lacking. This Letter presents the first measurement of transverse momentum (𝑝_T) dependence of radial flow fluctuations (𝑣₀⁡(𝑝_T)) over 0.5 < 𝑝_T < 10 GeV and demonstrates its collective nature using a two-particle correlation method in Pb+Pb collisions at $$\sqrt{𝑠_{NN}}$$ = 5.02 TeV. The data revealmore » three key features supporting the collective nature of radial flow: long-range correlation in pseudorapidity, factorization in 𝑝_T, and centrality-independent shape in 𝑝_T. The comparison with a hydrodynamic model demonstrates the sensitivity of 𝑣₀⁡(𝑝_T) to bulk viscosity, a crucial transport property of the QGP. These findings establish a new, powerful tool for probing collective dynamics and properties of the QGP.« less

The top-quark Yukawa coupling is extracted from the distribution of the top-quark pair ($$t\overline{t}$$) invariant mass in proton-proton collisions using 140 fb⁻¹ of data at $$\sqrt{s}=13$$ TeV collected in 2015–2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. In the region near the production threshold, the $$t\overline{t}$$ 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 $$t\overline{t}$$ system is reconstructed in the single-lepton final state, requiring exactly onemore » 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 Y_t < 2.1 relative to the Standard Model prediction is observed at 95% confidence level, consistent with the expected sensitivity.« less

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 inmore » 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.« less

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 additionalmore » 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 $$\sqrt{s}=13$$ TeV, and from a part of Run 3 (2022–2023), corresponding to 55 fb⁻¹ at $$\sqrt{s}=13.6$$ TeV. No significant excess over Standard Model predictions is observed. The results are interpreted as exclusion limits on scalar leptoquark ($$\tilde{S}$$₁) production, substantially improving upon previous ATLAS constraints from leptoquark pair production for large coupling values. The excluded $$\tilde{S}$$₁ $$\tilde{S}$$₁ mass ranges depend on the coupling strength, reaching up to 3.4 TeV for quark-lepton couplings y_de = 1.0, and up to 4.3 TeV, 3.1 TeV, and 2.8 TeV for y_sμ, y_be, and y_bμ couplings set to 3.5, respectively.« less

A search for R-parity-conserving supersymmetry in events with large missing transverse momentum, jets and at least one hadronically decaying $$\tau$$-lepton is presented. Both gluino and squark pair production are considered, with the cascade decay of each gluino or squark producing either a $$\tau$$-slepton or a $$\tau$$-sneutrino. Three channels are examined, requiring either exactly one hadronically decaying $$\tau$$-lepton and no other leptons, exactly one hadronically decaying $$\tau$$-lepton and at least one other lepton, or two or more hadronically decaying $$\tau$$-leptons. Analyses in the three channels are optimised independently and combined statistically. Two separate analysis strategies, either a cut-and-count or machine-learning approach,more » are used. The search uses 140 and 51.8 of pp collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider during 2015–2018 at TeV and 2022–2023 at TeV, respectively. Gluino masses below 2.25 TeV and squark masses up to 1.7 TeV are excluded« less

ATLAS, a general-purpose experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), makes use of a large internationally-distributed computing infrastructure, including over 10⁶ TB of managed data on disk and tape and almost one million simultaneously running CPU cores. Upgrades for the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) will increase the required computing resources by a factor of 3–4 by the beginning of the 2030s, and by an order of magnitude before the conclusion of data taking at the beginning of the 2040s. These resources are spread over around 100 computing sites worldwide. Efforts are underway within the experiment to evaluate and mitigate various aspectsmore » of the environmental impact of the sites, with the additional long-term goal of making recommendations to the sites that will significantly reduce the total expected environmental impact in the HL-LHC era. These efforts take several forms: building awareness in the experiment community, adjusting aspects of the computing policy, and modifications of data center configurations, either in ways that take advantage of particular features of ATLAS workloads or in generic ways that reduce the environmental impact of the computing resources. This paper describes the ongoing investigations and approaches that have already provided useful and actionable outcomes.« less

A search for the dimuon decay of the Higgs boson is presented based on 𝑝⁢𝑝 collision data recorded by ATLAS during Run 3 of the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 165 fb⁻¹ at $$\sqrt{s}$$ = 13.6 TeV. To enhance the sensitivity, the results are combined with those from Run 2. An excess of events over the background is observed with a significance of 3.4⁢𝜎 (2.5⁢𝜎 expected). The best-fit signal strength is 𝜇 = 1.4 ± 0.4. This result provides evidence for the 𝐻 → 𝜇⁢𝜇 decay with ATLAS data and offers a direct probe of themore » Higgs-boson Yukawa coupling to second-generation fermions.« less

A measurement of the top-quark pole mass $$m$$$^{pole}_{t}$$ is presented in $$t\bar{t}$$ events with an additional jet, $$t\bar{t}$$+ 1-jet, produced in pp collisions at $$\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV. The data sample, recorded with the ATLAS experiment during Run 2 of the LHC, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb⁻¹. Events with one electron and one muon of opposite electric charge in the final state are selected to measure the $$t\bar{t}$ + 1-jet differential cross-section as a function of the inverse of the invariant mass of the $$t\bar{t}$$ + 1-jet system. Iterative Bayesian Unfolding is used to correct the datamore » to enable comparison with fixed-order calculations at next-to-leading-order accuracy in the strong coupling. The process pp → $$t\bar{t}$$j(2 → 3), where top quarks are taken as stable particles, and the process pp → $$b\bar{b}$$l⁺ vl^–$$\overline{ν}$$j (2 → 7), which includes top-quark decays to the dilepton final state and off-shell effects, are considered. The top-quark mass is extracted using a χ² fit of the unfolded normalized differential cross-section distribution. The results obtained with the 2 → 3 and 2 → 7 calculations are compatible within theoretical uncertainties, providing an important consistency check.« less

This article reports on a search for dijet resonances using 132  fb⁻¹ of 𝑝⁢𝑝 collision data recorded at $$\sqrt{𝑠}$$ = 13  TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The search is performed solely on jets reconstructed within the ATLAS trigger to overcome bandwidth limitations imposed on conventional single-jet triggers, which would otherwise reject data from decays of sub-TeV dijet resonances. Collision events with two jets satisfying transverse momentum thresholds of 𝑝_T ≥ 85  GeV and jet rapidity separation of |𝑦*| <0.6 are analysed for dijet resonances with invariant masses from 375 to 1800  GeV. A data-driven background estimate is used tomore » model the dijet mass distribution from multijet processes. No significant excess above the expected background is observed. Upper limits are set at 95% confidence level on coupling values for a benchmark leptophobic axial-vector 𝑍′ model and on the production cross section for a new resonance contributing a Gaussian-distributed line-shape to the dijet mass distribution.« less

A search for events with one displaced vertex from long-lived particles using data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is presented, using 140 fb⁻¹ of proton-proton collision data at $$\sqrt{𝑠}$$ =13 TeV recorded in 2015–2018. The search employs techniques for reconstructing vertices of long-lived particles decaying into hadronic jets in the muon spectrometer displaced between 3 m and 14 m from the primary interaction vertex. The observed number of events is consistent with the expected background and limits for several benchmark signals are determined. A scalar-portal model and a Higgs-boson-portal baryogenesis model are considered. A dedicatedmore » analysis channel is employed to target Z-boson associated long-lived particle production, including an axionlike particle and a dark photon model. For the Higgs boson model, branching fractions above 1% are excluded at 95% confidence level for long-lived particle proper decay lengths ranging from 5 cm to 40 m. For the photophobic axionlike particle model considered, this search produces the strongest limits to date for proper decay lengths greater than 𝒪⁡(10) cm.« less