Hunting stops with tau leptons using the ATLAS detector

Naturalness arguments for weak-scale supersymmetry favor supersymmetric partners of the third generation quarks with masses not too far from those of their Standard Model counterparts. Top or bottom squarks with masses less than or around one TeV can also give rise to direct pair production rates at the LHC that can be observed in the data sample recorded by the ATLAS detector. The talk discusses the recent ATLAS results from a search for direct stop pair production in final states containing tau leptons using the data collected during the LHC Run 2.