Prospects for Scalar Leptoquark Discovery at the LHC

The discovery potential of the ATLAS detector for scalar leptoquark pair production at the LHC is discussed in this paper. The study is performed using a parameterized yet realistic simulation of the ATLAS detector response for the signal and the background. The channel LQLQ->(lq)(lq),where l=e,mu, is investigated for the first two generations and the decay mode LQLQ->(nu_tau b)(nu_tau b) for the third one. In both cases, a preliminary mass reach is found to be ~1.3 TeV for three years of LHC running at low luminosity.