Forward energy flow and diffraction at ATLAS

First measurements of forward energy flow and diffractive dissociation processes at ATLAS are presented. Measurements are based on 7 TeV minimum bias (7.1μb−1) and dijet (585μb−1) data samples taken during March-May 2010 in the low pileup accelerator setup. Measurement of transverse energy density as a function of pseudorapidity was performed using the full acceptance of ATLAS detectors. Stable charged particles with PT > 500 MeV and stable neutral particles with PT > 200 MeV were included. Manifestation of diffractive processes of three classes (single, double and central diffractive dissociation) was studied using inelastic differential cross section in forward rapidity gap size ΔηF bins. Experimental distributions are compared with several Monte Carlo predictions (PYTHIA6, PYTHIA8, PHOJET, HERWIG++ and EPOS) using different tunes.