Heavy Ion Physics with the ATLAS Detector

Abstract

Soon after the LHC is commissioned with proton beams the ATLAS experiment will begin studies of Pb-Pb collisions with a center of mass energy of ?sNN = 5.5 TeV. The ATLAS program is a natural extension of measurements at RHIC in a direction that exploits the higher LHC energies and the superb ATLAS calorimeter and tracking coverage. At LHC energies, collisions will be produced with even higher energy density than observed at RHIC. The properties of the resulting hot medium can be studied with higher energy probes, which are more directly interpreted through modification of jet properties emerging from these collisions, for example. Other topics which are enabled by the 30-fold increase in center of mass energy include probing the partonic structure of nuclei with hard photoproduction (in UltraPeripheral collisions) and in p-Pb collisions. Here we report on evaluation of ATLAS capabilities for Heavy Ion Physics.