The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will face the challenge of efficiently selecting interesting candidate events in pp collisions at 14 TeV center-of-mass energy, whilst rejecting the enormous number of background events. The High-Level Trigger (HLT = second level trigger and Event Filter), which is a software based trigger will need to reduce the level-1 output rate of ≈75 kHz to ≈200 Hz written out to mass storage. In this talk an overview of the current physics and system performance of the HLT selection for electrons and photons is given. The performance has been evaluated using Monte Carlo simulations and has been partly demonstrated in the ATLAS testbeam in 2004. The efficiency for the signal channels, the rate expected for the selection, the global data preparation and execution times will be highlighted. Furthermore, some physics examples will be discussed to demonstrate that the triggers are well adapted for the physics programme envisaged at the LHC. © 2006 IEEE.

ATLAS is one of the four LHC experiments that will start data taking in 2007, designed to cover a wide range of physics topics. The ATLAS trigger system has to cope with a rate of 40 MHz and 23 interactions per bunch crossing. It is divided in three different levels. The first one (hardware based) provides a signature that is confirmed by the the following trigger levels (software based) by running a sequence of algorithms and validating the signal step by step, looking only to the region of the space indicated by the first trigger level (seeding). In this presentation, the performance of one of these sequences that run at the Event Filter level (third level) and is composed of clustering at the calorimeter, track reconstruction and matching, will be presented. © 2005 IEEE.

The ATLAS combined test beam in the second half of 2004 saw the first deployment of the ATLAS High-Level Trigger (HLT). The next steps are deployment on the p re-series farms in the experimental area during 2005, commissioning and cosmics tests with the full detector in 2006 and collisions in 2007. This paper reviews the experience gained in the test beam, describes the current status and discusses the further enhancements to be made. We address issues related to the dataflow, integration of selection algorithms, testing, software distribution, installation and improvements. © 2006 IEEE.

The ATLAS combined test beam in the second half of 2004 saw the first deployment of the ATLAS High-Level Triggers (HLT). The next steps are deployment on the pre-series farms in the experimental area during 2005, commissioning and cosmics tests in 2006 and collisions in 2007. This paper reviews the experience gained in the test beam, describes the current status and discusses the further enhancements to be made. We address issues related to the dataflow, selection algorithms, testing, software distribution, installation and improvements. © 2005 IEEE.

ATLAS is one of the four major Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments that will start data taking in 2007. It is designed to cover a wide range of physics topics. The ATLAS trigger system has to be able to reduce an initial 40 MHz event rate, corresponding to an average of 23 proton-proton inelastic interactions per every 25 ns bunch crossing, to 200 Hz admissible by the Data Acquisition System. The ATLAS trigger is divided in three different levels. The first one provides a signal describing an event signature using dedicated custom hardware. This signature must be confirmed by the High Level Trigger (HLT) which using commercial computing farms performs an event reconstruction by running a sequence of algorithms. The validity of a signature is checked after every algorithm execution. A main characteristic of the ATLAS HLT is that only the data in a certain window around the position flagged by the first level trigger are analyzed. In this work, the performance of one sequence that runs at the Event Filter level (third level) is demonstrated. The goal of this sequence is to reconstruct and identify high transverse momentum electrons by performing cluster reconstruction at the electromagnetic calorimeter, track reconstruction at the Inner Detector, and cluster track matching. © 2006 IEEE.

The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will face the challenge of efficiently selecting interesting candidate events in pp collisions at 14 TeV center-of-mass energy, whilst rejecting the enormous number of background events. The High-Level Trigger (HLT = second level trigger and Event Filter), which is a software based trigger will need to reduce the level-1 output rate of ≈ 75 kHz to ≈ 200 Hz written out to mass storage. In this talk an overview of the current physics and system performance of the HLT selection for electrons and photons is given. The performance has been evaluated using Monte Carlo simulations and has been partly demonstrated in the ATLAS testbeam in 2004. The efficiency for the signal channels, the rate expected for the selection, the global data preparation and execution times will be highlighted. Furthermore, some physics examples will be discussed to demonstrate that the triggers are well adapted for the physics programme envisaged at the LHC. © 2005 IEEE.

The four LEP collaborations, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have searched for the neutral Higgs bosons which are predicted by the Minimal Supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). The data of the four collaborations are statistically combined and examined for their consistency with the background hypothesis and with a possible Higgs boson signal. The combined LEP data show no significant excess of events which would indicate the production of Higgs bosons. The search results are used to set upper bounds on the cross-sections of various Higgs-like event topologies. The results are interpreted within the MSSM in a number of "benchmark" models, including CP-conserving and CP-violating scenarios. These interpretations lead in all cases to large exclusions in the MSSM parameter space. Absolute limits are set on the parameter tan β and, in some scenarios, on the masses of neutral Higgs bosons.