Many extensions of the Standard Model incorporate new particles that couple strongly to heavy objects. Vector-like quarks (VLQs) are one such class of new particles. VLQs are non-chiral fermions with symmetric left- and right-handed couplings that do not receive their mass from the Higgs mechanism. Most importantly, VLQs can help resolve the naturalness problem when introduced into loop calculations of the Higgs mass. The decay of VLQs into Standard Model particles yields rich final states in the ATLAS detector. In this seminar I will summarize two separate searches for VLQs at a center-of-mass-energy of 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
