ATLAS is a particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (The European Center for Nuclear Research). The ATLAS detector is searching for new discoveries in the head-on collisions of protons of extraordinarily high energy. ATLAS will learn about the basic forces that have shaped our universe since the beginning of time and that will determine its fate. Among the possible unknowns are the origin of mass, extra dimensions of space, microscopic black holes, and evidence for dark matter candidates in the universe. on July 4th 2012 ATLAS announced the discovery of a Boson which could be the long sought Higgs. In april 2013 further studies on spin and parity confirmed that this is the Higgs Boson.

ATLAS is an international collaboration of about 3000 physicists from all over 40 nation of the world. They came from about 200 universities and laboratories and include about 1000 students. ATLAS is one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in the physical sciences. The Lecce Group is participating in ATLAS since 1994 and we participated in the designing, building, installation and commissioning of the Resistive Plate Chambers of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer.