Identification of Jets Containing $b$-Hadrons with Recurrent Neural Networks at the ATLAS Experiment

A novel $b$-jet identification algorithm is constructed with a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) at the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The RNN based $b$-tagging algorithm processes charged particle tracks associated to jets without reliance on secondary vertex finding, and can augment existing secondary-vertex based taggers. In contrast to traditional impact-parameter-based $b$-tagging algorithms which assume that tracks associated to jets are independent from each other, the RNN based $b$-tagging algorithm can exploit the spatial and kinematic correlations between tracks which are initiated from the same $b$-hadrons. This new approach also accommodates an extended set of input variables. This note presents the expected performance of the RNN based $b$-tagging algorithm in simulated $t \bar t$ events at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV.