Heavy Ion Physics with the ATLAS Detector

The ATLAS experiment will participate in the Heavy Ion Program of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), for which the 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. The large acceptance, high granularity calorimeters, silicon tracking detectors and muon spectrometers assure ATLAS to handle such a challenging program.