Galactic center gamma-ray excess through a dark shower
The reported excess of $\gamma$-rays, emitted from an extended region around the galactic center, has a distribution and rate suggestive of an origin in dark matter (DM) annihilations. The conventional annihilation channels into standard model (SM) $b$ quarks or $\tau$ leptons may, however, be in tension with various experimental constraints on antiproton and positron fluxes. We present a framework that is free from such constraints. The key idea is that the mediators between the dark matter and the SM are themselves part of a strongly coupled sector: a hidden valley. In this scenario, the dark matter particles annihilate only into hidden quarks that subsequently shower and hadronize. Hidden quark effective couplings to SM hypercharge allow the lightest hidden bound states to subsequently decay into SM photons, producing the observed photon energy spectrum. Associated production of SM fermions is, in contrast, suppressed by electroweak, loop or helicity effects. We find that, generically, $\sim$ 10 GeV DM and a confinement scale $\sim$ 1 GeV provide a good fit to the observed spectrum. An $SU(2)$ hidden confining group is preferred over $SU(3)$ or higher rank gauge groups, up to uncertainties in the extraction of the astrophysical background. An explicit realization of this framework is also presented, and its phenomenology is discussed in detail, along with pertinent cosmological, astrophysical and collider bounds. This framework may be probed by model-independent searches, including future beam-dump experiments.

title: More flavor SU(3) tests for new physics in CP violating B decays
abstract: A bstractThe recent LHCb measurements of the Bs → K−π+ and Bs → K+K− rates and CP asymmetries are in agreement with U-spin expectations from Bd → K+π− and Bd → π+π− results. We derive the complete set of isospin, U-spin, and SU(3) relations among the CP asymmetries in two-body charmless B → PP and B → PV decays, some of which are novel. To go beyond the unbroken SU(3) limit, we present relations which are properly defined and normalized to allow incorporation of SU(3) breaking in the simplest manner. We show that there are no CP relations beyond first order in SU(3) and isospin breaking. We also consider the corresponding relations for charm decays. Comparing parametrizations of the leading order sum rules with data can shed light on the applicability and limitations of both the flavor symmetry and factorization-based descriptions of SU(3) breaking. Two factorization relations can already be tested, and we show they agree with current data.

title: KeV warm dark matter and composite neutrinos
abstract: A bstractElementary keV sterile Dirac neutrinos can be a natural ingredient of the composite neutrino scenario. For a certain class of composite neutrino theories, these sterile neutrinos naturally have the appropriate mixing angles to be resonantly produced warm dark matter (WDM). Alternatively, we show these sterile neutrinos can be WDM produced by an entropy-diluted thermal freeze-out, with the necessary entropy production arising not from an out-of-equilibrium decay, but rather from the confinement of the composite neutrino sector, provided there is sufficient supercooling.

title: SU(3) sum rules for charm decay
abstract: A bstractWe present flavor SU(3) sum rules for D → PP and D → PV decay amplitudes, that are valid to second order in symmetry breaking by the strange quark mass spurion. Decay rate sum rules are also computed to this order. Particular attention is given to sum rules arising from the isospin and U-spin subgroups, the former providing sensitive tests for alternative sources of SU(3) breaking. We apply the latter together with the postulated ΔU = 0 rule for the large penguin picture to predict the ratio and difference of the direct CP asymmetries for D → KK∗ and D → πρ.

title: Measurement of upsilon production in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS
abstract: Using 1.8  fb-1 of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, we present measurements of the production cross sections of Υ(1S,2S,3S) mesons. Υ mesons are reconstructed using the dimuon decay mode. Total production cross sections for pT<70  GeV and in the rapidity interval |yΥ|<2.25 are measured to be, 8.01±0.02±0.36±0.31  nb, 2.05±0.01±0.12±0.08  nb, and 0.92±0.01±0.07±0.04  nb, respectively, with uncertainties separated into statistical, systematic, and luminosity measurement effects. In addition, differential cross section times dimuon branching fractions for Υ(1S), Υ(2S), and Υ(3S) as a function of Υ transverse momentum pT and rapidity are presented. These cross sections are obtained assuming unpolarized production. If the production polarization is fully transverse or longitudinal with no azimuthal dependence in the helicity frame, the cross section may vary by approximately ±20%. If a nontrivial azimuthal dependence is considered, integrated cross sections may be significantly enhanced by a factor of 2 or more. We compare our results to several theoretical models of Υ meson production, finding that none provide an accurate description of our data over the full range of Υ transverse momenta accessible with this data set.

title: Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
abstract: Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H --> gamma-gamma, H --> ZZ* --> 4 leptons and H --> WW --> 2 leptons + 2 neutrinos. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25/fb. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson.

title: Characterisation and mitigation of beam-induced backgrounds observed in the ATLAS detector during the 2011 proton-proton run
abstract: This paper presents a summary of beam-induced backgrounds observed in the ATLAS detector and discusses methods to tag and remove background contaminated events in data. Trigger-rate based monitoring of beam-related backgrounds is presented. The correlations of backgrounds with machine conditions, such as residual pressure in the beam-pipe, are discussed. Results from dedicated beam-background simulations are shown, and their qualitative agreement with data is evaluated. Data taken during the passage of unpaired, i.e. non-colliding, proton bunches is used to obtain background-enriched data samples. These are used to identify characteristic features of beam-induced backgrounds, which then are exploited to develop dedicated background tagging tools. These tools, based on observables in the Pixel detector, the muon spectrometer and the calorimeters, are described in detail and their efficiencies are evaluated. Finally an example of an application of these techniques to a monojet analysis is given, which demonstrates the importance of such event cleaning techniques for some new physics searches.

title: Search for diphoton events with large missing transverse momentum in 7 TeV proton-proton collision data with the ATLAS detector
abstract: A search for diphoton events with large missing transverse momentum has been performed using proton-proton collision data at is root s = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 fb(-1). No excess of events was observed above the Standard Model prediction and model-dependent 95% confidence level exclusion limits are set. In the context of a generalised model of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking with a bino-like lightest neutralino of mass above 50 GeV, gluinos (squarks) below 1.07 TeV (0.87 TeV) are excluded, while a breaking scale Lambda below 196 TeV is excluded for a minimal model of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. For a specific model with one universal extra dimension, compactification scales 1/R < 1.40 TeV are excluded. These limits provide the most stringent tests of these models to date.

title: Search for supersymmetry in events with photons, bottom quarks, and missing transverse momentum in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
abstract: A search has been performed for the experimental signature of an isolated photon with high transverse momentum, at least one jet identified as originating from a bottom quark, and high missing transverse momentum. Such a final state may originate from supersymmetric models with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking in events in which one of a pair of higgsino-like neutralinos decays into a photon and a gravitino while the other decays into a Higgs boson and a gravitino. The search is performed using the full dataset of 7 TeV proton–proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2011, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb−1. A total of 7 candidate events are observed while 7.5±2.2 events are expected from the Standard Model background. The results of the search are interpreted in the context of general gauge mediation to exclude certain regions of a benchmark plane for higgsino-like neutralino production.