Primary Vertex Reconstruction at the ATLAS Experiment

Efficient and precise reconstruction of the primary vertex in an LHC collision is essential in both the reconstruction of the full kinematic properties of a hard-scatter event and of soft interactions as a measure of the amount of pile-up. The reconstruction of primary vertices in the busy, high pile-up environment of Run-2 of the LHC is a challenging task. New methods have been developed by the ATLAS experiment to reconstruct vertices in such environments. Advances in vertex seeding include methods taken from medical imaging, which allow for reconstruction of multiple vertices with small spatial separation. The adoption of this new seeding algorithm within the ATLAS adaptive vertex finding and fitting procedure will be discussed, and the first results of the new techniques from Run-2 data will be presented. Additionally, data-driven methods to evaluate vertex resolution will be presented with special focus on correct methods to evaluate the effect of the beam spot constraint; results from these methods in Run-2 data will be presented.