The Standard Model of particle physics provides a highly successful framework for understanding fundamental forces and particles. However, it leaves several open questions, including the nature of dark matter and the mechanism behind electroweak symmetry breaking, which motivate the search for new physics beyond the Standard Model. To address these questions, two analyses are conducted using proton-proton collision data at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector, focusing on the dilepton final state (electron and muon pairs).
The first analysis searches for new heavy Z' bosons, where the dilepton final state is accompanied by vector boson fusion (VBF) jets. While no definitive results have been obtained, early hints suggest the possibility of new physics signatures that merit further investigation. The second analysis measures the double differential cross-section of high-mass Drell-Yan production in an exclusive final state with b-jets, offering a precise test of Standard Model predictions at high energies.