Measurements of fiducial cross sections for the electroweak production of two jets in association with a Z-boson are presented. The measurements are performed using 20.3 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s)=8 TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The electroweak component is extracted by a fit to the dijet invariant mass distribution in a fiducial region chosen to enhance the electroweak contribution over the dominant background in which the jets are produced via the strong interaction. The electroweak cross sections measured in two fiducial regions are in good agreement with the Standard Model expectations and the background-only hypothesis is rejected with significance above the 5 sigma level. The electroweak process includes the vector boson fusion production of a Z-boson and the data are used to place limits on anomalous triple gauge boson couplings. In addition, measurements of cross sections and differential distributions for inclusive Z-boson-plus-dijet production are performed in five fiducial regions, each with different sensitivity to the electroweak contribution. The results are corrected for detector effects and compared to predictions from the SHERPA and POWHEG event generators.

Fiducial cross-sections for $t\bar{t}$ production with one or two additional $b$-jets are reported, using an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb$^{-1}$ of proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider, collected with the ATLAS detector. The cross-section times branching ratio for $t\bar{t}$ events with at least one additional $b$-jet is measured to be 950 $\pm$ 70 (stat.) $^{+240}_{-190}$ (syst.) fb in the lepton-plus-jets channel and 50 $\pm$ 10 (stat.) $^{+15}_{-10}$ (syst.) fb in the $e \mu$ channel. The cross-section times branching ratio for events with at least two additional $b$-jets is measured to be 19.3 $\pm$ 3.5 (stat.) $\pm$ 5.7 (syst.) fb in the dilepton channel ($e \mu$,\,$\mu\mu$, and \,$ee$) using a method based on tight selection criteria, and 13.5 $\pm$ 3.3 (stat.) $\pm$ 3.6 (syst.) fb using a looser selection that allows the background normalisation to be extracted from data. The latter method also measures a value of 1.30 $\pm$ 0.33 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.28 (syst.)\% for the ratio of $t\bar{t}$ production with two additional $b$-jets to $t\bar{t}$ production with any two additional jets. All measurements are in good agreement with recent theory predictions.

The results of a search for pair production of light top squarks are presented, using 4.7 fb^-1 of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. This search targets top squarks with masses similar to, or lighter than, the top quark mass. Final states containing exclusively one or two leptons (e, mu), large missing transverse momentum, light-jets and b-jets are used to reconstruct the top squark pair system. Global mass scale variables are used to separate the signal from a large ttbar background. No excess over the Standard Model expectations is found. The results are interpreted in the framework of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, assuming the top squark decays exclusively to a chargino and a b-quark. Light top squarks with masses between 123-167 GeV are excluded for neutralino masses around 55 GeV.

A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded by the ATLAS experiment in sqrt(s) = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. No excess above the Standard Model background expectation was observed in 35 inverse picobarns of analysed data. Gluino masses below 500 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level in simplified models containing only squarks of the first two generations, a gluino octet and a massless neutralino. The exclusion increases to 870 GeV for equal mass squarks and gluinos. In MSUGRA/CMSSM models with tan(beta)= 3, A_0=0 and mu>0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded below 775 GeV. These are the most stringent limits to date.

A search for squarks and gluinos in events containing jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded in 2011 by the ATLAS experiment in sqrt(s) = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. No excess above the Standard Model background expectation is observed in 1.04 fb^-1 of data. Gluino and squark masses below 700 GeV and 875 GeV respectively are excluded at the 95% confidence level in simplified models containing only squarks of the first two generations, a gluino octet and a massless neutralino. The exclusion limit increases to 1075 GeV for squarks and gluinos of equal mass. In MSUGRA/CMSSM models with tan(beta)=10, A_0=0 and mu> 0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded for masses below 950 GeV. These limits extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded by previous measurements.

Measurements of the production of jets of particles in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV are presented, using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6/fb collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Inclusive and differential jet cross sections in Z events, with Z decaying into electron or muon pairs, are measured for jets with transverse momentum pT > 30 GeV and rapidity |y| < 4.4. The results are compared to next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations, and to predictions from different Monte Carlo generators based on leading-order and next-to-leading-order matrix elements supplemented by parton showers.

A measurement of the jet activity in ttbar events produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented, using 2.05 fb^-1 of integrated luminosity collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The ttbar events are selected in the dilepton decay channel with two identified b-jets from the top quark decays. Events are vetoed if they contain an additional jet with transverse momentum above a threshold in a central rapidity interval. The fraction of events surviving the jet veto is presented as a function of this threshold for four different central rapidity interval definitions. An alternate measurement is also performed, in which events are vetoed if the scalar transverse momentum sum of the additional jets in each rapidity interval is above a threshold. In both measurements, the data are corrected for detector effects and compared to the theoretical models implemented in MC@NLO, POWHEG, ALPGEN and SHERPA. The experimental uncertainties are often smaller than the spread of theoretical predictions, allowing deviations between data and theory to be observed in some regions of phase space.

A measurement of jet activity in the rapidity interval bounded by a dijet system is presented. Events are vetoed if a jet with transverse momentum greater than 20 GeV is found between the two boundary jets. The fraction of dijet events that survive the jet veto is presented for boundary jets that are separated by up to six units of rapidity and with mean transverse momentum 50 < pT(avg) < 500 GeV. The mean multiplicity of jets above the veto scale in the rapidity interval bounded by the dijet system is also presented as an alternative method for quantifying perturbative QCD emission. The data are compared to a next-to-leading order plus parton shower prediction from the POWHEG-BOX, an all-order resummation using the HEJ calculation and the PYTHIA, HERWIG++ and ALPGEN event generators. The measurement was performed using pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV using data recorded by the ATLAS detector in 2010.

Using the ATLAS detector, observations have been made of a centrality-dependent dijet asymmetry in the collisions of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider. In a sample of lead-lead events with a per-nucleon center of mass energy of 2.76 TeV, selected with a minimum bias trigger, jets are reconstructed in fine-grained, longitudinally-segmented electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters. The underlying event is measured and subtracted event-by-event, giving estimates of jet transverse energy above the ambient background. The transverse energies of dijets in opposite hemispheres is observed to become systematically more unbalanced with increasing event centrality leading to a large number of events which contain highly asymmetric dijets. This is the first observation of an enhancement of events with such large dijet asymmetries, not observed in proton-proton collisions, and which may point to an interpretation in terms of strong jet energy loss in a hot, dense medium.

Jet cross sections have been measured for the first time in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector. The measurement uses an integrated luminosity of 17 nb-1 recorded at the Large Hadron Collider. The anti-kt algorithm is used to identify jets, with two jet resolution parameters, R = 0.4 and 0.6. The dominant uncertainty comes from the jet energy scale, which is determined to within 7% for central jets above 60 GeV transverse momentum. Inclusive single-jet differential cross sections are presented as functions of jet transverse momentum and rapidity. Dijet cross sections are presented as functions of dijet mass and the angular variable $\chi$. The results are compared to expectations based on next-to-leading-order QCD, which agree with the data, providing a validation of the theory in a new kinematic regime.