Electron Identification Performance and First Measurement of $W \to e + \nu$ Process with the ATLAS Detector

The identification of electrons is important for the ATLAS experiment because electrons are present in many interactions of interest produced at the Large Hadron Collider. A deep knowledge of the detector, the electron identification algorithms, and the calibration techniques are crucial in order to accomplish this task. This thesis work presents a Monte Carlo study using electrons from the W —> e + v process to evaluate the performance of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter. A significant number of electrons was produced in the early ATLAS collision runs at centre-of-mass energies of 900 GeV and 7 TeV between November 2009 and April 2010, and their properties are presented. Finally, a first measurement of W —> e + v process with the ATLAS experiment was successfully accomplished with the first C = 1.0 nb_ 1 of data at the 7 TeV collision energy, and the properties of the W candidates are also detailed.