Study of hard double-parton scattering in four-jet events in pp collisions at s√=7s=7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

Inclusive four-jet events produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s√=7s=7 TeV are analysed for the presence of hard double-parton scattering using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 37.3 pb−1−1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The contribution of hard double-parton scattering to the production of four-jet events is extracted using an artificial neural network, assuming that hard double-parton scattering can be approximated by an uncorrelated overlaying of dijet events. For events containing at least four jets with transverse momentum pTT ≥ 20 GeV and pseudorapidity |η| ≤ 4.4, and at least one having pTT ≥ 42.5 GeV, the contribution of hard double-parton scattering is estimated to be fDPSDPS = 0.092+ 0.005− 0.011− 0.011+ 0.005 (stat.)+ 0.033− 0.037− 0.037+ 0.033 (syst.). After combining this measurement with those of the inclusive dijet and four-jet cross-sections in the appropriate phase space regions, the effective cross-section, σeffeff , was determined to be σeffeff = 14. 9+ 1.2− 1.0− 1.0+ 1.2 (stat.)+ 5.1− 3.8− 3.8+ 5.1 (syst.) mb. This result is consistent within the quoted uncertainties with previous measurements of σeffeff , performed at centre-of-mass energies between 63 GeV and 8 TeV using various final states, and it corresponds to 21+ 7− 6− 6+ 7  % of the total inelastic cross-section measured at s√=7s=7 TeV. The distributions of the observables sensitive to the contribution of hard double-parton scattering, corrected for detector effects, are also provided.