Since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the diphoton ([gamma][gamma]) decay channel of the Higgs boson has been one of the most potent channels due to the contrast between the smoothly falling background and sharply peaked signal in the diphoton invariant mass. In 2018, with up to 80 fb-1 of data at [square root]s = 13 TeV, ATLAS observed Higgs boson production in association with a pair of top quarks (ttH) with a significance of 5.8 [sigma] by combining measurements in the [gamma][gamma], bb, ZZ, and multi-lepton Higgs decay channels. The ttH production cross-section was measured to be 670 [plus or minus] 90 (stat) +110 -100 (syst) fb. The diphoton channel was one of the main contributors to this result, alone providing a significance of 4.1 [sigma]. With 140 fb-1, a search for non-resonant Higgs pair production in the bb[gamma][gamma] final state was performed. No significant signal was observed and upper limits at 95% confidence level were set. The observed limit on the SM cross-section was 130 fb, or 4.2 times the predicted value. The observed Higgs trilinear coupling modifier was constrained to be between [-1.5, 6.7]. Both the ttH (H [rightwards arrow] [gamma][gamma]) and HH bb[gamma][gamma] analyses will benefit tremendously from the increased statistics expected from the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). To ensure the continued efficiency of the detector in the harsh HL-LHC environment, ATLAS will install a new Inner Tracker (ITk) consisting of silicon pixel sensors in its innermost layer. At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a variety of electrical tests are performed for the construction of a prototype integrated pixel system, in order to provide early feedback and validation of the ITk design.

This dissertation presents the first observation of Higgs boson production in association with a top quark-antiquark pair in the diphoton decay channel, with a significance of 6.6 standard deviations. The measurement is performed with a dataset of 13 TeV proton-proton collisions recorded by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb−1.

This first open access volume of the handbook series contains articles on the standard model of particle physics, both from the theoretical and experimental perspective. It also covers related topics, such as heavy-ion physics, neutrino physics and searches for new physics beyond the standard model. A joint CERN-Springer initiative, the "Particle Physics Reference Library" provides revised and updated contributions based on previously published material in the well-known Landolt-Boernstein series on particle physics, accelerators and detectors (volumes 21A, B1,B2,C), which took stock of the field approximately one decade ago. Central to this new initiative is publication under full open access

The recent observation of the Higgs boson has been hailed as the scientific discovery of the century and led to the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics. This book describes the detailed science behind the decades-long search for this elusive particle at the Large Electron Positron Collider at CERN and at the Tevatron at Fermilab and its subsequent discovery and characterization at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Written by physicists who played leading roles in this epic search and discovery, this book is an authoritative and pedagogical exposition of the portrait of the Higgs boson that has emerged from a large number of experimental measurements. As the first of its kind, this book should be of interest to graduate students and researchers in particle physics.

With 4.8~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected at $\sqrt{s}=7~\rm{TeV}$ in 2011, and 5.9~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ collected at $\sqrt{s}=8~\rm{TeV}$ in 2012 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, an excess of 4.5 standard deviations from the background-only hypothesis is observed near 126.5~GeV in the diphoton invariant mass spectra. Along with the excesses observed in the $H \rightarrow ZZ^{(*)}\rightarrow \ell\ell\ell\ell$ and $H \rightarrow WW^{(*)}\rightarrow \ell\nu\ell\nu$ channels, the observation of a Higgs-like particle is established at 6.0 standard deviations level. With more data accumulated during LHC Run~1, the measurements of Higgs boson couplings and mass in the $H\to\gamma\gamma$ channel are conducted by the ATLAS experiment based on 4.5~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7~\rm{TeV}$ collected in 2011, and 20.3~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ at $\sqrt{s}=8~\rm{TeV}$ collected in 2012. The combined signal strength, defined as number of observed Higgs boson decays to diphoton divided by the corresponding Standard Model prediction, is measured to be $1.17 \ ^{+0.28}_{-0.26}$ assuming the Higgs boson mass being 125.4~$\rm{GeV}$. The signal strengths for individual Higgs boson production processes are also measured, and are found to be in good consistency with the Standard Model. The mass of the Higgs boson is measured in $H\to\gamma\gamma$ channel by the ATLAS experiment to be $125.98 \pm 0.50$~\GeV. This measurement is combined with the ones from ATLAS $H \rightarrow ZZ^{(*)}\rightarrow \ell\ell\ell\ell$ as well as CMS $H\to\gamma\gamma$ and $H \rightarrow ZZ^{(*)}\rightarrow \ell\ell\ell\ell$. The Higgs boson mass measured from the combination is $125.09\pm0.24~\rm{GeV}$. With LHC center-of-mass energy increased to 13~TeV, a search for high mass Beyond the Standard Model scalar resonance is performed in the diphoton decay channel based on 15.4~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector during 2015 and 2016. While a notable wide excess was first observed in the diphoton invariant mass spectrum from the 2015 data (3.2~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$) with mass near 750~GeV, it is not confirmed by the 2016 data with much higher statistics (12.4~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$). Limits on the production cross section times branching ratio of such resonances are set.

The discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) represents a milestone for the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. Most of the SM Higgs production and decay rates have been measured at the LHC with increased precision. However, despite its experimental success, the SM is known to be only an effective manifestation of a more fundamental description of nature. The scientific research at the LHC is strongly focused on extending the SM by searching, directly or indirectly, for indications of New Physics. The extensive physics program requires increasingly advanced computational and algorithmic techniques. In the last decades, Machine Learning (ML) methods have made a prominent appearance in the field of particle physics, and promise to address many challenges faced by the LHC. This thesis presents the analysis that led to the observation of the SM Higgs boson decay into pairs of bottom quarks. The analysis exploits the production of a Higgs boson associated with a vector boson whose signatures enable efficient triggering and powerful background reduction. The main strategy to maximise the signal sensitivity is based on a multivariate approach. The analysis is performed on a dataset corresponding to a luminosity of 79.8/fb collected by the ATLAS experiment during Run-2 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. An excess of events over the expected background is found with an observed (expected) significance of 4.9 (4.3) standard deviation. A combination with results from other \Hbb searches provides an observed (expected) significance of 5.4 (5.5). The corresponding ratio between the signal yield and the SM expectation is 1.01 +- 0.12 (stat.)+ 0.16-0.15(syst.). The 'observation' analysis was further extended to provide a finer interpretation of the V H(H → bb) signal measurement. The cross sections for the VH production times the H → bb branching ratio have been measured in exclusive regions of phase space. These measurements are used to search for possible deviations from the SM with an effective field theory approach, based on anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson. The results of the cross-section measurements, as well as the constraining of the operators that affect the couplings of the Higgs boson to the vector boson and the bottom quarks, have been documented and discussed in this thesis. This thesis also describes a novel technique for the fast simulation of the forward calorimeter response, based on similarity search methods. Such techniques constitute a branch of ML and include clustering and indexing methods that enable quick and efficient searches for vectors similar to each other. The new simulation approach provides optimal results in terms of detector resolution response and reduces the computational requirements of a standard particles simulation.