Performance and operation of the ATLAS Resistive Plate Chamber system in LHC Run-1

The barrel region of the ATLAS muon spectrometer is instrumented with a Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) system covering the pseudo-rapidity range |η|<1.05 with a detector surface of almost 4000 m2. The RPCs, providing the first level trigger signal and the track coordinate in the non-bending plane for the candidate muons, have played a fundamental role in the physics studies carried out by ATLAS, culminated with the discovery of the Higgs boson. During the LHC Run-1 the RPC have shown excellent performances up to the maximum instantaneous luminosity of 0.7 × 1034 cm−2 s−1, corresponding approximately to 70% of the design value. The detector operation in the challenging background and pileup conditions of the LHC environment will be presented together with the problems encountered and their corresponding solutions. The plans for the maintenance and consolidation of the ATLAS RPC system during the current LHC shutdown, in view of the increased luminosity expected in Run-2, will be also presented.