The LHC’s jump in energy to 13 TeV in Run 2, together with the copious amount of collisions delivered over the last 12 months, has allowed the ATLAS experiment to collect a data sample that is more than equivalent to the one collected during Run 1.

ATLAS physicists have been eagerly searching the collected data for evidence of the production of the supersymmetric top quark (squark). Recent ATLAS results feature five separate searches for this elusive particle. 

The ATLAS experiment has been searching for the process in which a pair of top quarks is produced, where one is a “virtual” particle that emits a Higgs boson on the way to becoming a “real” particle. This process is referred to as ttH production after the particles that are produced.

The nature of dark matter remains one of the greatest mysteries in physics. While extraordinary, the Standard Model can not explain dark matter, whose existence is well established by cosmological measurements.

Results using record-breaking 2016 data will be presented at the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) in Chicago, 3-10 August.

ATLAS has measured properties of events likely to contain a Higgs boson, in order to get a better understanding of the frequency and manner in which they are produced.  The study specifically examines the fiducial and differential cross sections for Higgs bosons that decay into two photons or into two Z bosons, using proton-proton collisions recorded by ATLAS in 2012.

ATLAS physicists have studied the “shadow” of the Higgs boson far above its mass peak in an analysis of the full sample of 8 TeV proton-proton collisions delivered by the LHC in 2012. The study involves Higgs boson decays into two Z bosons, which themselves decay into four charged leptons or two charged leptons plus two neutrinos. Among other interesting properties, it provides new insight into the lifetime, or natural width, of the Higgs boson.

The production of pairs of heavy bosons, such as two Z bosons, a Z and a W boson, or the more challenging pair of W bosons (WW), are processes that particle physicists are passionate about because they cover a rich spectrum of phenomena. The WW channel, in particular, represents a substantial experimental challenge. In the events considered for this measurement, each W boson decays into an electron or a muon plus a neutrino that remains undetected and is reconstructed through the presence of missing energy in the event.

From decades of discoveries made at particle colliders, we know that protons are composed of quarks bound together by gluons. We also know that there are six kinds of quarks, each one with its associated antiparticle. But are quarks fundamental? ATLAS searched for signs that quarks may have substructure in its most recent data, collected from the LHC’s proton-proton collisions in 2012.

Data from a special run of the LHC using dedicated beam optics at 7 TeV have been analysed to measure the total cross-section of proton-proton collisions in ATLAS. Using the Absolute Luminosity For ATLAS (ALFA), a Roman Pot sub-detector located 240 metres from the collision point, ATLAS has determined the cross-section with unprecedented precision to be σ_tot (pp → X) = 95.4 ± 1.4 millibarn.