Reconstruction of tau leptons and prospects for SUSY in ATLAS

Final states with tau leptons may play a special role among the broad variety of signatures for the production of supersymmetric particles at the LHC. The algorithms for tau reconstruction and identification are discussed which are essential ingredients to reject the overwhelming background from QCD processes. We will also present the status of analyses of SUSY tau lepton final states within the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. These analyses range from a study of semi-inclusive discovery prospects to more exclusive processes with two tau leptons from neutralino-2 decays and their implications for the determination of SUSY parameters. Also, the prospects for exploiting tau lepton polarization is discussed.