Single-and double-differential cross-section measurements are presented for the production of top-quark pairs, in the lepton + jets channel at particle and parton level. Two topologies, resolved and boosted, are considered and the results are presented as a function of several kinematic variables characterising the top and tt system and jet multiplicities. The study was performed using data from pp collisions at centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected in 2015 and 2016 by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 fb −1. Due to the large tt cross-section at the LHC, such measurements allow a detailed study of the properties of top-quark production and decay, enabling precision tests of several Monte Carlo generators and fixed-order Standard Model predictions. Overall, there is good agreement between the theoretical predictions and the data.

This paper presents an analysis at next-to-next-to-leading order in the theory of quantum chromodynamics for the determination of a new set of proton parton distribution functions using diverse measurements in pp collisions at $$\sqrt{s} = 7$$ s = 7 , 8 and 13 TeV, performed by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, together with deep inelastic scattering data from ep collisions at the HERA collider. The ATLAS data sets considered are differential cross-section measurements of inclusive $$W^{\pm }$$ W ± and $$Z/\gamma ^*$$ Z / γ ∗ boson production, $$W^{\pm }$$ W ± and Z boson production in association with jets, $$t\bar{t}$$ t t ¯ production, inclusive jet production and direct photon production. In the analysis, particular attention is paid to the correlation of systematic uncertainties within and between the various ATLAS data sets and to the impact of model, theoretical and parameterisation uncertainties. The resulting set of parton distribution functions is called ATLASpdf21.

A search for the Higgs boson decaying into a pair of charm quarks is presented. The analysis uses proton–proton collisions to target the production of a Higgs boson in association with a leptonically decaying W or Z boson. The dataset delivered by the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of "Equation missing" and recorded by the ATLAS detector corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 $$\text{ fb}^{-1}$$ fb - 1 . Flavour-tagging algorithms are used to identify jets originating from the hadronisation of charm quarks. The analysis method is validated with the simultaneous measurement of WW, WZ and ZZ production, with observed (expected) significances of 2.6 (2.2) standard deviations above the background-only prediction for the $$(W/Z)Z(\rightarrow c{\bar{c}})$$ ( W / Z ) Z ( → c c ¯ ) process and 3.8 (4.6) standard deviations for the $$(W/Z)W(\rightarrow cq)$$ ( W / Z ) W ( → c q ) process. The $$(W/Z)H(\rightarrow c {\bar{c}})$$ ( W / Z ) H ( → c c ¯ ) search yields an observed (expected) upper limit of 26 (31) times the predicted Standard Model cross-section times branching fraction for a Higgs boson with a mass of "Equation missing", corresponding to an observed (expected) constraint on the charm Yukawa coupling modifier $$|\kappa _c| < 8.5~(12.4)$$ | κ c | < 8.5 ( 12.4 ) , at the 95% confidence level. A combination with the ATLAS $$(W/Z)H, H\rightarrow b{\bar{b}}$$ ( W / Z ) H , H → b b ¯ analysis is performed, allowing the ratio $$\kappa _c / \kappa _b$$ κ c / κ b to be constrained to less than 4.5 at the 95% confidence level, smaller than the ratio of the b- and c-quark masses, and therefore determines the Higgs-charm coupling to be weaker than the Higgs-bottom coupling at the 95% confidence level.

A direct search for Higgs bosons produced via vector-boson fusion and subsequently decaying into invisible particles is reported. The analysis uses 139 fb−1 of pp collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of $$ \sqrt{s} $$ s = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The observed numbers of events are found to be in agreement with the background expectation from Standard Model processes. For a scalar Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV and a Standard Model production cross section, an observed upper limit of 0.145 is placed on the branching fraction of its decay into invisible particles at 95% confidence level, with an expected limit of 0.103. These results are interpreted in the context of models where the Higgs boson acts as a portal to dark matter, and limits are set on the scattering cross section of weakly interacting massive particles and nucleons. Invisible decays of additional scalar bosons with masses from 50 GeV to 2 TeV are also studied, and the derived upper limits on the cross section times branching fraction decrease with increasing mass from 1.0 pb for a scalar boson mass of 50 GeV to 0.1 pb at a mass of 2 TeV.

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