The Trigger of the ATLAS Experiment

With the high bunch-crossing and interaction rates and potentially large event sizes the experiments at the LHC challenge data acquisition and trigger systems. Within the ATLAS experiment, a multi-level trigger system based on hardware and software is employed to cope with the task of event-rate reduction. This review article gives an overview of the trigger of the ATLAS experiment highlighting the design principles and the implementation of the system and provides references to more detailed information. In addition, first trigger- performance studies and an outlook on the ATLAS event-selection strategy are presented.