Tau trigger at the ATLAS experiment

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and commissioning of tau trigger algorithms at ATLAS, designed to identify tau leptons in the challenging environment of the LHC, especially in hadronic decay modes amidst high QCD background.

Contribution

It introduces tau trigger algorithms that utilize key features of hadronic tau decays and details the commissioning activities at ATLAS.

Findings

Tau trigger algorithms effectively identify hadronic tau decays.

The algorithms operate successfully at the trigger level.

Commissioning activities ensure reliable tau identification in LHC data.

Abstract

Many theoretical models, like the Standard Model or SUSY at large tan(beta), predict Higgs bosons or new particles which decay more abundantly to final states including tau leptons than to other leptons. At the energy scale of the LHC, the identification of tau leptons, in particular in the hadronic decay mode, will be a challenging task due to an overwhelming QCD background which gives rise to jets of particles that can be hard to distinguish from hadronic tau decays. Equipped with excellent tracking and calorimetry, the ATLAS experiment has developed tau identification tools capable of working at the trigger level. This contribution presents tau trigger algorithms which exploit the main features of hadronic tau decays and describes the current tau trigger commissioning activities.