Heavy Ion Physics with the ATLAS Detector

The ATLAS experiment will participate in the Heavy Ion Program of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which main goal is to create strong interacting matter under extreme energy density and temperature conditions. Evidences from SPS and RHIC data suggest that in such extreme conditions matter undergoes to a deconfined phase where the degrees of freedom are asymptotically free quarks and gluons, forming the so-called Quark Gluon Plasma. To pursue this task ATLAS must be capable to face the large multiplicities produced in the heavy ion environment, to measure bulk observables which provide information on the collective properties of the system, and, primarily, it must be able to trigger and to reconstruct the rare perturbative processes, namely jets which provide tomographic information of the strongly interacting medium. The large acceptance, high granularity calorimeters, silicon tracking detectors, and muon spectrometers assure to handle such a challenging program.