A combination of searches for singly and doubly charged Higgs bosons, H± and H±±, produced via vector-boson fusion is performed using 140 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected with the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider. Searches targeting decays to massive vector bosons in leptonic final states (electrons or muons) are considered. New constraints are reported on the production cross-section times branching fraction for charged Higgs boson masses between 200 GeV and 3000 GeV. The results are interpreted in the context of the Georgi-Machacek model for which the most stringent constraints to date are set for the masses considered in the combination.

A combination of searches for the single production of vectorlike top quarks (𝑇) is presented. These analyses are based on proton-proton collisions at √𝑠 =13  TeV recorded in 2015–2018 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb⁻¹. The 𝑇 decay modes considered in this combination are into a top quark and either a Standard Model Higgs boson or a 𝑍 boson (𝑇 →𝐻⁡𝑡 and 𝑇→𝑍⁢𝑡). The individual searches used in the combination are differentiated by the number of leptons (𝑒, 𝜇) in the final state. The observed data are found to be in good agreement with the Standard Model background prediction. Interpretations are provided for a range of masses and couplings of the vectorlike top quark for benchmark models and generalized representations in terms of 95% confidence level limits. For a benchmark signal prediction of a vectorlike top quark SU(2) singlet with electroweak coupling, 𝜅, of 0.5, masses below 2.1 TeV are excluded, resulting in the most restrictive limits to date.

This Letter presents a constraint on the total width of the Higgs boson (ΓH) using a combined measurement of on-shell Higgs boson production and the production of four top quarks, which involves contributions from off-shell Higgs boson-mediated processes. This method relies on the assumption that the tree-level Higgs-top Yukawa coupling strength is the same for on-shell and off-shell Higgs boson production processes, thereby avoiding any assumptions about the relationship between on-shell and off-shell gluon fusion Higgs production rates, which were central to previous measurements. The result is based on up to 140 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s = 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The observed (expected) 95% confidence level upper limit on ΓH is 450 MeV (75 MeV). Additionally, considering the constraint on the Higgs-top Yukawa coupling from loop-induced Higgs boson production and decay processes further yields an observed (expected) upper limit of 160 MeV (55 MeV).

In ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at the LHC, each nucleus acts a sources of high-energy real photons that can scatter off the opposing nucleus in ultraperipheral photonuclear ((Formula presented)) collisions. Hard scattering processes initiated by the photons in such collisions provide a novel method for probing nuclear parton distributions in a kinematic region not easily accessible to other measurements. ATLAS has measured production of dijet and multijet final states in ultraperipheral (Formula presented) collisions at (Formula presented) using a dataset recorded in 2018 with an integrated luminosity of (Formula presented). Photonuclear final states are selected by requiring a rapidity gap in the photon direction; this selects events where one of the outgoing nuclei remains intact. Jets are reconstructed using the anti-(Formula presented) algorithm with radius parameter, (Formula presented). Triple-differential cross sections, unfolded for detector response, are measured and presented using two sets of kinematic variables. The first set consists of the total transverse momentum ((Formula presented)), rapidity, and mass of the jet system. The second set uses (Formula presented) and particle-level nuclear and photon parton momentum fractions, (Formula presented) and (Formula presented), respectively. The results are compared with leading-order perturbative QCD calculations of photonuclear jet production cross sections, where all leading order predictions using existing fits fall below the data in the shadowing region. More detailed theoretical comparisons will allow these results to strongly constrain nuclear parton distributions, and these data provide results from the LHC directly comparable to early physics results at the planned Electron-Ion Collider.

Inclusive cross-sections for top-quark pair production in association with charm quarks are measured with proton–proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1, collected with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC between 2015 and 2018. The measurements are performed by requiring one or two charged leptons (electrons and muons), two b-tagged jets, and at least one additional jet in the final state. A custom flavor-tagging algorithm is employed for the simultaneous identification of b-jets and c-jets. In a fiducial phase space that replicates the acceptance of the ATLAS detector, the cross-sections for tt¯+≥2c and tt¯+1c production are measured to be 1.28−0.24+0.27pb and 6.4−0.9+1.0pb, respectively. The measurements are primarily limited by uncertainties in the modeling of inclusive tt¯ and tt¯+bb¯ production, in the calibration of the flavor-tagging algorithm, and by data statistics. Cross-section predictions from various tt¯ simulations are largely consistent with the measured cross-section values, though all underpredict the observed values by 0.5 to 2.0 standard deviations. In a phase-space volume without requirements on the tt¯ decay products and the jet multiplicity, the cross-section ratios of tt¯+≥2c and tt¯+1c to total tt¯+jets production are determined to be (1.23±0.25)% and (8.8±1.3)%.

A search for a light charged Higgs boson produced in decays of the top quark, t→H±b with H±→cs, is presented. This search targets the production of top-quark pairs tt¯→WbH±b, with W→ℓν (ℓ=e,μ), resulting in a lepton-plus-jets final state characterised by an isolated electron or muon and at least four jets. The search exploits b-quark and c-quark identification techniques as well as multivariate methods to suppress the dominant tt¯ background. The data analysed correspond to 140fb-1 of pp collisions at s=13TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC between 2015 and 2018. Observed (expected) 95% confidence-level upper limits on the branching fraction B(t→H±b), assuming B(t→Wb)+B(t→H±(→cs)b)=1.0, are set between 0.066% (0.077%) and 3.6% (2.3%) for a charged Higgs boson with a mass between 60 and 168 GeV.

This Letter presents a search for highly ionizing magnetic monopoles in 262  μ⁢b⁻¹ of ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collision data at √𝑠_NN=5.36  TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. A new methodology that exploits the properties of clusters of hits reconstructed in the innermost silicon detector layers is introduced to study highly ionizing particles in heavy-ion data. No significant excess above the background, which is estimated using a data-driven technique, is observed. Using a nonperturbative semiclassical model, upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the cross section for pair production of monopoles with a single Dirac magnetic charge in the mass range of 20–150 GeV. Depending on the model, monopoles with a single Dirac magnetic charge and mass below 80–120 GeV are excluded.

This Letter presents a search for highly ionizing magnetic monopoles in 262  μ⁢b⁻¹ of ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collision data at √𝑠_NN=5.36  TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. A new methodology that exploits the properties of clusters of hits reconstructed in the innermost silicon detector layers is introduced to study highly ionizing particles in heavy-ion data. No significant excess above the background, which is estimated using a data-driven technique, is observed. Using a nonperturbative semiclassical model, upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the cross section for pair production of monopoles with a single Dirac magnetic charge in the mass range of 20–150 GeV. Depending on the model, monopoles with a single Dirac magnetic charge and mass below 80–120 GeV are excluded.

This paper presents for the first time a precise measurement of the production properties of the Z boson in the full phase space of the decay leptons. This is in contrast to the many previous precise unfolded measurements performed in the fiducial phase space of the decay leptons. The measurement is obtained from proton–proton collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment in 2012 at s=8 TeV at the LHC and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb-1. The results, based on a total of 15.3 million Z-boson decays to electron and muon pairs, extend and improve a previous measurement of the full set of angular coefficients describing Z-boson decay. The double-differential cross-section distributions in Z-boson transverse momentum pT and rapidity y are measured in the pole region, defined as 80<mℓℓ<100 GeV, over the range |y|<3.6. The total uncertainty of the normalised cross-section measurements in the peak region of the pT distribution is dominated by statistical uncertainties over the full range and increases as a function of rapidity from 0.5–1.0% for |y|<2.0 to 2-7% at higher rapidities. The results for the rapidity-dependent transverse momentum distributions are compared to state-of-the-art QCD predictions, which combine in the best cases approximate N4LL resummation with N3LO fixed-order perturbative calculations. The differential rapidity distributions integrated over pT are even more precise, with accuracies from 0.2–0.3% for |y|<2.0 to 0.4–0.9% at higher rapidities, and are compared to fixed-order QCD predictions using the most recent parton distribution functions. The agreement between data and predictions is quite good in most cases.

The identification of top quark decays where the top quark has a large momentum transverse to the beam axis, known as top tagging, is a crucial component in many measurements of Standard Model processes and searches for beyond the Standard Model physics at the Large Hadron Collider. Machine learning techniques have improved the performance of top tagging algorithms, but the size of the systematic uncertainties for all proposed algorithms has not been systematically studied. This paper presents the performance of several machine learning based top tagging algorithms on a dataset constructed from simulated proton-proton collision events measured with the ATLAS detector at √_s = 13 TeV. The systematic uncertainties associated with these algorithms are estimated through an approximate procedure that is not meant to be used in a physics analysis, but is appropriate for the level of precision required for this study. The most performant algorithms are found to have the largest uncertainties, motivating the development of methods to reduce these uncertainties without compromising performance. To enable such efforts in the wider scientific community, the datasets used in this paper are made publicly available.