Triggering Standard Model Higgs processes in the ATLAS experiment

The search for the Higgs boson is a major physics goal of the future Large Hadron Collider. The potential to trigger on Standard Model Higgs boson with electrons or photons in the final state has been studied for the low mass range $m_{H}<2 m_{Z}$ for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Analyses for the $H \to ZZ^{*}$, $H \to \gamma \gamma$ and $H \to WW^{*}$ decay modes have been studied using a realistic simulation of the expected detector performance for both the start--up and the design luminosity scenarios. The results obtained demonstrate that the ATLAS trigger is efficiently selecting Higgs candidates for these discovery channels.