UC Irvine

A search for neutral Higgs bosons of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) and for a heavneutral Z′$$Z^{\prime }$$ boson is performed using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb-1$$^{-1}$$ from proton–proton collisions at s=13$$\sqrt{s} = 13$$  TeV$${\mathrm {TeV}}$$ recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The heavy resonance is assumed to decay to a τ+τ-$$\tau ^+ \tau ^-$$ pair with at least one τ$$\tau $$ lepton decaying to final states with hadrons and a neutrino. The search is performed in the mass range of 0.2–1.2  TeV$${\mathrm {TeV}}$$ for the MSSM neutral Higgs bosons and 0.5–2.5  TeV$${\mathrm {TeV}}$$ for the heavy neutral Z′$$Z^{\prime }$$ boson. The data are in good agreement with the background predicted by the Standard Model. The results are interpreted in MSSM and Z′$$Z^{\prime }$$ benchmark scenarios. The most stringent constraints on the MSSM mA$$m_A$$–tanβ$$\tan \beta $$ space exclude at 95 % confidence level (CL) tanβ>7.6$$\tan \beta > 7.6$$ for mA=200$$m_A = 200$$ GeV$$\text {GeV}$$ in the mhmod+$$m_{h}^{\text {mod+}}$$ MSSM scenario. For the Sequential Standard Model, a ZSSM′$$Z^{\prime }_\mathrm {SSM}$$ mass up to 1.90  TeV$${\mathrm {TeV}}$$ is excluded at 95 % CL and masses up to 1.82–2.17  TeV$${\mathrm {TeV}}$$ are excluded for a ZSFM′$$Z^{\prime }_{\mathrm {SFM}}$$ of the strong flavour model.