Further investigations of ATLAS Sensitivity to Higgs Boson Production in different assumed LHC scenarios

Projections for the ATLAS sensitivity to the Standard Model Higgs boson from LHC running at centre-of-mass energies of sqrts = 7 and 8 TeV are reported. These studies extend our previous results by considering the luminosities required to reach 5sigma discovery significance. The projections are largely derived using cross-sections rescaling to different centre-of-mass energies. The ATLAS experiment, with 1 fb−1 of data taken at sqrts = 7 TeV and using rather conservative assumptions, should have sensitivity such that Higgs boson masses between 129 and 460 GeV have at least a 50% chance of being excluded at 95% CL. If 10 fb−1 of data taken at sqrts = 8 TeV is available the 5sigma discovery region covers from 128 to over 500 GeV.