The Heavy Ion Physics Program with ATLAS at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper discusses the upcoming heavy ion collision experiments at the LHC using ATLAS, highlighting the extended energy range and potential for new insights into high-Q^2 processes compared to previous experiments.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the ATLAS detector setup and outlines the physics focus for heavy ion collisions at the LHC.

Findings

Preparation for Pb+Pb collisions at 5.52 TeV is underway.

Extended energy range enhances study of hard processes.

Expected to improve understanding of quark-gluon plasma.

Abstract

The first Pb+Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrts_NN = 5.52 TeV are imminent. Heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide an extended energy lever arm to the existing measurements made at RHIC and SPS, especially in hard (large-Q^2) processes. In this contribution an overview of the ATLAS detector is given and the current physics focus of Heavy Ion Working Group is discussed.