The ATLAS Semi-Conductor Tracker Operation and Performance
The Semi-Conductor Tracker (SCT) is a silicon strip detector and one of the key precision tracking devices in the Inner Detector of the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The SCT was installed and commissioned within ATLAS in 2007, and has been used to exploit fully the physics potential of the LHC since the first proton–proton collisions at 7 TeV were delivered in 2009. In this paper, its operational status throughout data taking up to the end of 2011 is presented, and its tracking performance is reviewed.

title: Measurement of the cross section of high transverse momentum $\it{Z\rightarrow b\bar{b}}$ production in proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8 TeV$ with the ATLAS Detector

title: The barrel modules of the ATLAS semiconductor tracker.
abstract: This paper describes the silicon microstrip modules in the barrel section of the SemiConductor Tracker (SCT) of the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The module requirements, components and assembly techniques are given, as well as first results of the module performance on the fully assembled barrels that make up the detector being installed in the ATLAS experiment.

title: ATLAS measurements of the properties of jets for boosted particle searches
abstract: Measurements are presented of the properties of high transverse momentum jets, produced in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of root s = 7 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb(-1) and were collected with the ATLAS detector in 2010. Jet mass, width, eccentricity, planar flow and angularity are measured for jets reconstructed using the anti-k(t) algorithm with distance parameters R 0: 6 and 1.0, with transverse momentum p(T) > 300 GeV and pseudorapidity vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2. The measurements are compared to the expectations of Monte Carlo generators that match leading-logarithmic parton showers to leading-order, or next-to-leading-order, matrix elements. The generators describe the general features of the jets, although discrepancies are observed in some distributions.

title: Progress with the single-sided module prototypes for the ATLAS tracker upgrade stave
abstract: The ATLAS experiment is preparing for the planned luminosity upgrade of the LHC (the super-luminous LHC or sLHC) with a programme of development for tracking able to withstand an order of greater magnitude radiation fluence and much greater hit occupancy rates than the current detector. This has led to the concept of an all-silicon tracker with an enhanced performance pixel-based inner region and short-strips for much of the higher radii. Both sub-systems employ many common technologies, including the proposed “stave” concept for integrated cooling and support. For the short-strip region, use of this integrated stave concept requires single-sided modules mounted on either side of a thin central lightweight support. Each sensor is divided into four rows of 23.82 mm length strips; within each row, there are 1280 strips of 74.5μm pitch. Well over a hundred prototype sensors are being delivered by Hamamatsu Photonics (HPK) to Japan, Europe and the US. We present results of the first 20 chip ABCN25 ASIC hybrids for these sensors, results of the first prototype 5120 strip module built with 40 ABCN25 read-out ASICs, and the status of the hybrids and modules being developed for the ATLAS tracker upgrade stave programme.

title: ATLAS beam test results
abstract: Many different configurations of electronics and semiconductor strip detectors were studied in 1995 using the ATLAS tracking detector test area at the H8 beam-line of the CERN SPS. A significant fraction of these investigations are presented elsewhere in this volume and this paper will concentrate on the results with silicon strip detectors read out with electronics preserving the pulse height information. Data has been collected with the ADAM, APV5 and FElix read-out chips on a number of different detectors. The first results are presented for read out with LHC electronics of detectors to the ATLAS-A specification of 112.5 μm pitch, employing n-strips in n-type silicon, capacitive coupling and intermediate strips. It is demonstrated that with adequate signal/noise, a spatial resolution of ⋍13 μm is attainable with these detectors.

title: Lorentz symmetric quantum field theory for symplectic fermions
abstract: A free quantum field theory with Lorentz symmetry is derived for spin-half symplectic fermions in 2+1 dimensions. In particular, we show that fermionic spin-half fields may be canonically quantized in a free theory with a Klein–Gordon Lagrangian. This theory is shown to have all the required properties of a consistent free quantum field theory, namely, causality, unitarity, adherence to the spin-statistics theorem, CPT symmetry, and the Hermiticity and positive definiteness of the Hamiltonian. The global symmetry of the free theory is Sp(4)≃SO(5). Possible interacting theories of both the pseudo-Hermitian and Hermitian variety are then examined briefly.

title: Galactic center gamma-ray excess through a dark shower
abstract: 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: Kinematic edges with flavor oscillation and non-zero widths
abstract: Kinematic edges in cascade decays provide a probe of the masses of new particles. In some new physics scenarios the decay chain involves intermediate particles of different flavors that can mix and oscillate. We discuss the implication of such oscillation, and in particular its interplay with the non-zero widths of the particles. We derive explicit formulae for differential decay rates involving both non-zero widths and oscillation, and show that in the case where the mass difference between the intermediate particle is of the order of their widths, both oscillation and width effects are important. An examination of the physical observables contained in these differential decay rates is provided. We calculate differential decay rates for cases in which the intermediate particles are either scalars or fermions.

title: Dynamical framework for KeV Dirac neutrino warm dark matter
abstract: If the source of the reported $3.5$ keV x-ray line is a sterile neutrino, comprising an $\mathcal{O}(1)$ fraction of the dark matter (DM), then it exhibits the property that its mass times mixing angle is $\sim \mbox{few} \times 10^{-2}$ eV, a plausible mass scale for the active neutrinos. This property is a common feature of Dirac neutrino mixing. We present a framework that dynamically produces light active and keV sterile Dirac neutrinos, with appropriate mixing angles to be the x-ray line source. The central idea is that the right-handed active neutrino is a composite state, while elementary sterile neutrinos gain keV masses similarly to the quarks in extended Technicolor. The entire framework is fixed by just two dynamical scales and may automatically exhibit a warm dark matter (WDM) production mechanism -- dilution of thermal relics from late decays of a heavy composite neutrino -- such that the keV neutrinos may comprise an $\mathcal{O}(1)$ fraction of the DM. In this framework, the WDM is typically quite cool and within structure formation bounds, with temperature $\sim \mbox{few}\times 10^{-2}~T_\nu$ and free-streaming length $\sim$ few kpc. A toy model that exhibits the central features of the framework is also presented.

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.