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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (7 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2018)
Flavor-changing neutral currents are not present in the Standard Model at tree level and are suppressed in loop processes by the unitarity of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix; the corresponding rates for top quark decay processes are experimentally unobservable. Extensions of the Standard Model can generate new flavor-changing neutral current processes, leading to signals which, if observed, would be unambiguous evidence of new interactions. A data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb-1 of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of s=13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used to search for top quarks decaying to up or charm quarks with the emission of a Higgs boson, with subsequent Higgs boson decay to final states with at least one electron or muon. No signal is observed and limits on the branching fractions B(t→Hc)<0.16% and B(t→Hu)<0.19% at 95% confidence level are obtained (with expected limits of 0.15% in both cases).
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2018)
    A search for a heavy neutral Higgs boson, A, decaying into a Z boson and another heavy Higgs boson, H, is performed using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1 from proton–proton collisions at s=13 TeV recorded in 2015 and 2016 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The search considers the Z boson decaying to electrons or muons and the H boson into a pair of b-quarks. No evidence for the production of an A boson is found. Considering each production process separately, the 95% confidence-level upper limits on the pp→A→ZH production cross-section times the branching ratio H→bb are in the range of 14–830 fb for the gluon–gluon fusion process and 26–570 fb for the b-associated process for the mass ranges 130–700 GeV of the H boson and 230–800 GeV of the A boson. The results are interpreted in the context of two-Higgs-doublet models.
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2018)
      A search for new phenomena in final states containing an e+e- or μ+μ- pair, jets, and large missing transverse momentum is presented. This analysis makes use of proton-proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 36.1fb-1 , collected during 2015 and 2016 at a centre-of-mass energy s=13TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The search targets the pair production of supersymmetric coloured particles (squarks or gluinos) and their decays into final states containing an e+e- or μ+μ- pair and the lightest neutralino ( χ~10 ) via one of two next-to-lightest neutralino ( χ~20 ) decay mechanisms: χ~20→Zχ~10 , where the Z boson decays leptonically leading to a peak in the dilepton invariant mass distribution around the Z boson mass; and χ~20→ℓ+ℓ-χ~10 with no intermediate ℓ+ℓ- resonance, yielding a kinematic endpoint in the dilepton invariant mass spectrum. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectation. Results are interpreted using simplified models, and exclude gluinos and squarks with masses as large as 1.85 and 1.3  Te at 95% confidence level, respectively.
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2018)
        This Letter presents a search for exotic decays of the Higgs boson to a pair of new (pseudo)scalar particles, H→aa, where the a particle has a mass in the range 20–60 GeV, and where one of the a bosons decays into a pair of photons and the other to a pair of gluons. The search is performed in event samples enhanced in vector-boson fusion Higgs boson production by requiring two jets with large invariant mass in addition to the Higgs boson candidate decay products. The analysis is based on the full dataset of pp collisions at s=13TeV recorded in 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.7 fb−1. The data are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions and an upper limit at the 95% confidence level is placed on the production cross section times the branching ratio for the decay H→aa→γγgg. This limit ranges from 3.1 pb to 9.0 pb depending on the mass of the a boson.
          Cover page: Search for Higgs boson decays into pairs of light (pseudo)scalar particles in the γγjj final state in pp collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UC Irvine Previously Published Works (2018)
          A search for new heavy particles that decay into top-quark pairs is performed using data collected from proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13  TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The integrated luminosity of the data sample is 36.1 fb -1 . Events consistent with top-quark pair production are selected by requiring a single isolated charged lepton, missing transverse momentum and jet activity compatible with a hadronic top-quark decay. Jets identified as likely to contain b-hadrons are required to reduce the background from other Standard Model processes. The invariant mass spectrum of the candidate top-quark pairs is examined for local excesses above the background expectation. No significant deviations from the Standard Model predictions are found. Exclusion limits are set on the production cross-section times branching ratio for hypothetical Z' bosons, Kaluza-Kein gluons and Kaluza-Klein gravitons that decay into top-quark pairs.
            • Article
            • Peer Reviewed
            UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2018)
            The observation of Higgs boson production in association with a top quark pair (tt¯H), based on the analysis of proton–proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, is presented. Using data corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 79.8 fb−1, and considering Higgs boson decays into bb¯, WW⁎, τ+τ−, γγ, and ZZ⁎, the observed significance is 5.8 standard deviations, compared to an expectation of 4.9 standard deviations. Combined with the tt¯H searches using a dataset corresponding to integrated luminosities of 4.5 fb−1 at 7 TeV and 20.3 fb−1 at 8 TeV, the observed (expected) significance is 6.3 (5.1) standard deviations. Assuming Standard Model branching fractions, the total tt¯H production cross section at 13 TeV is measured to be 670 ± 90 (stat.) −100+110 (syst.) fb, in agreement with the Standard Model prediction.
              Cover page: Observation of Higgs boson production in association with a top quark pair at the LHC with the ATLAS detector
              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2018)
              A search for direct pair production of top squarks in final states with two tau leptons, b-jets, and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on proton-proton collision data at s=13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb-1 recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2016. Two exclusive channels with either two hadronically decaying tau leptons or one hadronically and one leptonically decaying tau lepton are considered. No significant deviation from the Standard Model predictions is observed in the data. The analysis results are interpreted in terms of model-independent limits and used to derive exclusion limits on the masses of the top squark t1 and the tau slepton τ1 in a simplified model of supersymmetry with a nearly massless gravitino. In this model, masses up to m(t1)=1.16 TeV and m(τ1)=1.00 TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level.
                Cover page: Search for top squarks decaying to tau sleptons in pp collisions at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detectorCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
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