An investigation into the discovery potential for SUperSYmmetry at the LHC with early data from the ATLAS detector

To explain the large difference between the Planck scale and the electroweak scale, models in which there are super-symmetric partners of the particles in the Standard Model have been proposed. This thesis presents a study of analysis techniques which will optimise the discovery of such a model using Monte Carlo simulations of the ATLAS detector at CERN. The selections are based on features that differentiate SUper-SYmmetric (SUSY) events from Standard Model (SM) background processes. A study into a method for measuring the resolution of the missing transverse energy (E!J!i88) using data is performed. Finally an estimate of how much data will be needed to exclude or discover a set of benchmark mSugra SUSY points is presented.