SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The results of a search for electroweakino pair production $pp \rightarrow \tilde\chi^\pm_1 \tilde\chi^0_2$ in which the chargino ($\tilde\chi^\pm_1$) decays into a $W$ boson and the lightest neutralino ($\tilde\chi^0_1$), while the heavier neutralino ($\tilde\chi^0_2$) decays into the Standard Model 125 GeV Higgs boson and a second $\tilde\chi^0_1$ are presented. The signal selection requires a pair of $b$-tagged jets consistent with those from a Higgs boson decay, and either an electron or a muon from the $W$ boson decay, together with missing transverse momentum from the corresponding neutrino and the stable neutralinos. The analysis is based on data corresponding to 139 $\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV $pp$ collisions provided by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded by the ATLAS detector. No statistically significant evidence of an excess of events above the Standard Model expectation is found. Limits are set on the direct production of the electroweakinos in simplified models, assuming pure wino cross-sections. Masses of $\tilde{\chi}^{\pm}_{1}/\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{2}$ up to 740 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level for a massless $\tilde{\chi}^{0}_{1}$.
Inclusive and differential fiducial cross sections of the Higgs boson are measured in the H → Z Z * → 4 ℓ ( ℓ = e , μ ) decay channel. The results are based on proton-proton collision data produced at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector from 2015 to 2018, equivalent to an integrated luminosity of 139 $\hbox {fb}^{-1}$ fb - 1 . The inclusive fiducial cross section for the H → Z Z * → 4 ℓ process is measured to be σ fid = 3.28 ± 0.32 fb, in agreement with the Standard Model prediction of σ fid , SM = 3.41 ± 0.18 fb. Differential fiducial cross sections are measured for a variety of observables which are sensitive to the production and decay of the Higgs boson. All measurements are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions. The results are used to constrain anomalous Higgs boson interactions with Standard Model particles.
Higgs boson properties are studied in the four-lepton decay channel (where lepton = e, μ) using 139 fb -1 of proton–proton collision data recorded at $\sqrt{s}=$13 TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The inclusive cross-section times branching ratio for H→ZZ* decay is measured to be 1.34±0.12 pb for a Higgs boson with absolute rapidity below 2.5, in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction of 1.33±0.08 pb. Cross-sections times branching ratio are measured for the main Higgs boson production modes in several exclusive phase-space regions. The measurements are interpreted in terms of coupling modifiers and of the tensor structure of Higgs boson interactions using an effective field theory approach. Exclusion limits are set on the CP-even and CP-odd ‘beyond the Standard Model’ couplings of the Higgs boson to vector bosons, gluons and top quarks.
A search for pair production of scalar leptoquarks, each decaying into either an electron or a muon and a top quark, is presented. This is the first leptoquark search using ATLAS data to investigate top-philic cross-generational couplings that could provide explanations for recently observed anomalies in B meson decays. This analysis targets high leptoquark masses which cause the decay products of each resultant top quark to be contained within a single high-p T large-radius jet. The full Run 2 dataset is exploited, consisting of 139 fb -1 of data collected from proton–proton collisions at √s=13 TeV from 2015 to 2018 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. In the absence of any significant deviation from the background expectation, lower limits on the leptoquark masses are set at 1480 GeV and 1470 GeV for the electron and muon channel, respectively.
A search for heavy resonances decaying into a pair of Z bosons leading to $\ell ^+\ell ^-\ell '^+\ell '^-$ and $\ell ^+\ell ^-\nu {{\bar{\nu }}}$ final states, where ℓ stands for either an electron or a muon, is presented. The search uses proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected from 2015 to 2018 that corresponds to the integrated luminosity of 139 fb -1 recorded by the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. Different mass ranges spanning 200 GeV to 2000 GeV for the hypothetical resonances are considered, depending on the final state and model. In the absence of a significant observed excess, the results are interpreted as upper limits on the production cross section of a spin-0 or spin-2 resonance. The upper limits for the spin-0 resonance are translated to exclusion contours in the context of Type-I and Type-II two-Higgs-doublet models, and the limits for the spin-2 resonance are used to constrain the Randall–Sundrum model with an extra dimension giving rise to spin-2 graviton excitations.
In general-purpose particle detectors, the particle-flow algorithm may be used to reconstruct a comprehensive particle-level view of the event by combining information from the calorimeters and the trackers, significantly improving the detector resolution for jets and the missing transverse momentum. In view of the planned high-luminosity upgrade of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), it is necessary to revisit existing reconstruction algorithms and ensure that both the physics and computational performance are sufficient in an environment with many simultaneous proton–proton interactions (pileup). Machine learning may offer a prospect for computationally efficient event reconstruction that is well-suited to heterogeneous computing platforms, while significantly improving the reconstruction quality over rule-based algorithms for granular detectors. We introduce MLPF, a novel, end-to-end trainable, machine-learned particle-flow algorithm based on parallelizable, computationally efficient, and scalable graph neural network optimized using a multi-task objective on simulated events. We report the physics and computational performance of the MLPF algorithm on a Monte Carlo dataset of top quark–antiquark pairs produced in proton–proton collisions in conditions similar to those expected for the high-luminosity LHC. The MLPF algorithm improves the physics response with respect to a rule-based benchmark algorithm and demonstrates computationally scalable particle-flow reconstruction in a high-pileup environment.
The paper presents a measurement of the Standard Model Higgs Boson decaying to b-quark pairs in the vector boson fusion (VBF) production mode. A sample corresponding to 126 fb –1 of √s = 13TeV proton–proton collision data, collected with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, is analyzed utilizing an adversarial neural network for event classification. The signal strength, defined as the ratio of the measured signal yield to that predicted by the Standard Model for VBF Higgs production, is measured to be $0.95$ $^{+0.38}_{–0.36}$, corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of 2.6 (2.8) standard deviations from the background only hypothesis. The results are additionally combined with an analysis of Higgs bosons decaying to b-quarks, produced via VBF in association with a photon.
Three spare modules of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter were exposed to test beams from the Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator at CERN in 2017. The detector’s measurements of the energy response and resolution to positive pions and kaons, and protons with energies ranging from 16 to 30 GeV are reported. The results have uncertainties of a few percent. They were compared to the predictions of the Geant4-based simulation program used in ATLAS to estimate the response of the detector to proton-proton events at the Large Hadron Collider. The determinations obtained using experimental and simulated data agree within the uncertainties.
The results of a search for gluino and squark pair production with the pairs decaying via the lightest charginos into a final state consisting of two W bosons, the lightest neutralinos ($\tilde{χ}^0_1$), and quarks, are presented: the signal is characterised by the presence of a single charged lepton (e ± or μ ± ) from a W boson decay, jets, and missing transverse momentum. The analysis is performed using 139 fb -1 of proton–proton collision data taken at a centre-of-mass energy √s=13 delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded by the ATLAS experiment. No statistically significant excess of events above the Standard Model expectation is found. Limits are set on the direct production of squarks and gluinos in simplified models. Masses of gluino (squark) up to 2.2 (1.4 ) are excluded at 95% confidence level for a light $\tilde{χ}^0_1$.
The production cross-section of a top quark in association with a W boson is measured using proton–proton collisions at √s = 8TeV. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb –1 , and was collected in 2012 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The analysis is performed in the single-lepton channel. Events are selected by requiring one isolated lepton (electron or muon) and at least three jets. A neural network is trained to separate the tW signal from the dominant tt¯ background. The cross-section is extracted from a binned profile maximum-likelihood fit to a two-dimensional discriminant built from the neural-network output and the invariant mass of the hadronically decaying W boson. The measured cross-section is σ tW = 26 ± 7pb, in good agreement with the Standard Model expectation.
Abstract Anomaly detection techniques are growing in importance at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), motivated by the increasing need to search for new physics in a model-agnostic way. In this work, we provide a detailed comparative study between a well-studied unsupervised method called the autoencoder (AE) and a weakly-supervised approach based on the Classification Without Labels (CWoLa) technique. We examine the ability of the two methods to identify a new physics signal at different cross sections in a fully hadronic resonance search. By construction, the AE classification performance is independent of the amount of injected signal. In contrast, the CWoLa performance improves with increasing signal abundance. When integrating these approaches with a complete background estimate, we find that the two methods have complementary sensitivity. In particular, CWoLa is effective at finding diverse and moderately rare signals while the AE can provide sensitivity to very rare signals, but only with certain topologies. We therefore demonstrate that both techniques are complementary and can be used together for anomaly detection at the LHC.
Measurements of both the inclusive and differential production cross sections of a top-quark–antiquark pair in association with a Z boson ($t\bar{t}Z$) are presented. The measurements are performed by targeting final states with three or four isolated leptons (electrons or muons) and are based on $\sqrt{s}$=13 TeV proton–proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb -1 , recorded from 2015 to 2018 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The inclusive cross section is measured to be σ $t\bar{t}Z$ =0.99 ± 0.05 (stat.) ± 0.08 (syst.) pb, in agreement with the most precise theoretical predictions. The differential measurements are presented as a function of a number of kinematic variables which probe the kinematics of the $t\bar{t}Z$ system. Both absolute and normalised differential cross-section measurements are performed at particle and parton levels for specific fiducial volumes and are compared with theoretical predictions at different levels of precision, based on a χ 2 /ndf and p value computation. Overall, good agreement is observed between the unfolded data and the predictions.
A search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in final states characterized by high jet multiplicity, at least one isolated light lepton and either zero or at least three b-tagged jets is presented. The search uses 139fb –1 of $\sqrt{s}=13\hbox{TeV}$ proton–proton collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. The results are interpreted in the context of R-parity-violating supersymmetry models that feature gluino production, top-squark production, or electroweakino production. The dominant sources of background are estimated using a data-driven model, based on observables at medium jet multiplicity, to predict the b-tagged jet multiplicity distribution at the higher jet multiplicities used in the search. Machine-learning techniques are used to reach sensitivity to electroweakino production, extending the data-driven background estimation to the shape of the machine-learning discriminant. No significant excess over the Standard Model expectation is observed and exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level are extracted, reaching as high as 2.4 TeV in gluino mass, 1.35 TeV in top-squark mass, and 320 (365) GeV in higgsino (wino) mass.
Several improvements to the ATLAS triggers used to identify jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) were implemented for data-taking during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider from 2016 to 2018. These changes include reconfiguring the b-jet trigger software to improve primary-vertex finding and allow more stable running in conditions with high pile-up, and the implementation of the functionality needed to run sophisticated taggers used by the offline reconstruction in an online environment. These improvements yielded an order of magnitude better light-flavour jet rejection for the same b-jet identification efficiency compared to the performance in Run 1 (2011–2012). The efficiency to identify b-jets in the trigger, and the conditional efficiency for b-jets that satisfy offline b-tagging requirements to pass the trigger are also measured. Correction factors are derived to calibrate the b-tagging efficiency in simulation to match that observed in data. The associated systematic uncertainties are substantially smaller than in previous measurements. In addition, b-jet triggers were operated for the first time during heavy-ion data-taking, using dedicated triggers that were developed to identify semileptonic b-hadron decays by selecting events with geometrically overlapping muons and jets.
Measurements of event-by-event fluctuations of charged-particle multiplicities in Pb–Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm {NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV using the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are presented in the pseudorapidity range |η| < 0.8 and transverse momentum 0.2 < p T < 2.0 GeV/c. The amplitude of the fluctuations is expressed in terms of the variance normalized by the mean of the multiplicity distribution. The η and p T dependences of the fluctuations and their evolution with respect to collision centrality are investigated. The multiplicity fluctuations tend to decrease from peripheral to central collisions. The results are compared to those obtained from HIJING and AMPT Monte Carlo event generators as well as to experimental data at lower collision energies. Additionally, the measured multiplicity fluctuations are discussed in the context of the isothermal compressibility of the high-density strongly-interacting system formed in central Pb–Pb collisions.
We report on the inclusive J/ψ production cross section measured at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in proton–proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV. The J/ψ mesons are reconstructed in the e + e - decay channel and the measurements are performed at midrapidity (|y|<0.9) in the transverse-momentum interval 0 < p T < 40 GeV/c, using a minimum-bias data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity L int =32.2 nb -1 and an Electromagnetic Calorimeter triggered data sample with L int =8.3 pb -1 . The p T -integrated J/ψ production cross section at midrapidity, computed using the minimum-bias data sample, is dσ/dy| y = 0 = 8.97±0.24 (stat)±0.48 (syst)±0.15 (lumi) μb. An approximate logarithmic dependence with the collision energy is suggested by these results and available world data, in agreement with model predictions. The integrated and p T -differential measurements are compared with measurements in pp collisions at lower energies and with several recent phenomenological calculations based on the non-relativistic QCD and Color Evaporation models.
A measurement of the energy asymmetry in jet-associated top-quark pair production is presented using 139fb -1 of data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider during pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ =13TeV. The observable measures the different probability of top and antitop quarks to have the higher energy as a function of the jet scattering angle with respect to the beam axis. The energy asymmetry is measured in the semileptonic $t\bar{t}$ decay channel, and the hadronically decaying top quark must have transverse momentum above 350GeV. The results are corrected for detector effects to particle level in three bins of the scattering angle of the associated jet. The measurement agrees with the SM prediction at next-to-leading-order accuracy in quantum chromodynamics in all three bins. In the bin with the largest expected asymmetry, where the jet is emitted perpendicular to the beam, the energy asymmetry is measured to be -0.043 ± 0.020, in agreement with the SM prediction of -0.037 ± 0.003. Interpreting this result in the framework of the Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT), it is shown that the energy asymmetry is sensitive to the top-quark chirality in four-quark operators and is therefore a valuable new observable in global SMEFT fits.