Measurement of the inclusive jet cross-section in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector.

The dominant process in hard proton-proton collisions is the production of hadronic jets. These sprays of particles are produced by colored partons, which are struck out of their confinement within the proton. Previous measurements of inclusive jet cross sections have provided valuable information for the determination of parton density functions and allow for stringent tests of perturbative QCD at the highest accessible energies. This thesis will present a measurement of inclusive jet cross sections in proton-proton collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. Jets are identified using the anti-kt algorithm and jet radii of R=0.6 and R=0.4. They are calibrated using a dedicated pT and eta dependent jet calibration scheme. The cross sections are measured for 40 GeV < pT <= 1 TeV and |y| < 2.8 in four bins of absolute rapidity, using data recorded in 2010 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 pb^-1. The data is fully corrected for detector effects and compared to theoretical predictions calculated at next-to-leading order including non-perturbative effects. The theoretical predictions are found to agree with data within the experimental and theoretic uncertainties. The ratio of cross sections for R=0.4 and R=0.6 is measured, exploiting the significant correlations of the systematic uncertainties, and is compared to recently developed theoretical predictions. The underlying event can be characterized by the amount of transverse momentum per unit rapidity and azimuth, called rhoue. Using analytical approaches to the calculation of non-perturbative corrections to jets, rhoue at the LHC is estimated using the ratio measurement. A feasibility study of a combined measurement of rhoue and the average strong coupling in the non-perturbative regime alpha_0 is presented and proposals for future jet measurements at the LHC are made.