The ATLAS Trigger Algorithms Upgrade and Performance in Run-2

TL;DR

The paper discusses the upgrades and performance improvements of the ATLAS trigger system during Run-2 of the LHC, enhancing event selection efficiency and robustness amidst increased luminosity and pile-up.

Contribution

It introduces new hardware and software upgrades to the ATLAS trigger system that significantly improve its efficiency and pile-up robustness for higher luminosity runs.

Findings

Enhanced Level-1 trigger efficiency and reduced fake candidates.

Improved high-level trigger performance with offline-like reconstruction.

Prepared the system for higher luminosity and pile-up conditions.

Abstract

The ATLAS trigger has been used very successfully for the online event selection during the first part of the second LHC run (Run-2) in 2015/16 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The trigger system is composed of a hardware Level-1 trigger and a software-based high-level trigger; it reduces the event rate from the bunch-crossing rate of 40 MHz to an average recording rate of about 1 kHz. The excellent performance of the ATLAS trigger has been vital for the ATLAS physics program of Run-2, selecting interesting collision events for a wide variety of physics signatures with high efficiency. The trigger selection capabilities have been significantly improved compared to Run-1, in order to cope with the higher event rates and pile-up during Run-2. At the Level-1 trigger the undertaken improvements resulted in more pile-up robust selection efficiencies and event rates and in a reduction of fake candidate particles. A new hardware system, designed to analyze event-topologies, supports a more refined event selection at the Level-1. A hardware-based high-rate track reconstruction is currently being commissioned. Together with a re-design of the high-level trigger to deploy more offline-like reconstruction techniques, these changes improve the performance of the trigger selection turn-on and efficiency to nearly that of the offline reconstruction. In order to prepare for the anticipated further luminosity increase of the LHC in 2017/18, improving the trigger performance remains an ongoing endeavor. The large number of pile-up events is one of the most prominent challenges. This report gives a short review the ATLAS trigger system and its performance in 2015/16 before describing the significant improvements in selection sensitivity and pile-up robustness, which we implemented in preparation for the expected highest ever luminosities of the 2017/18 LHC.