Are taus the key to discovering SUSY?

The ATLAS experiment at the CERN LHC will begin data taking in 2008. Due to the high energy and luminosity of the LHC the ATLAS experiment has a large discovery potential for new physics. One of the most popular ''new physics'' models waiting to be verified is Supersymmetry (SUSY) and so the search for supersymmetric particles will be an important task of 2008. Many SUSY models show that taus are the most predominantly produced leptons in SUSY channels. In order to look for SUSY we must therefore understand the backgrounds coming from standard model (SM) tau channels. However tau data channels are the most difficult to reconstruct and therefore the least studied of all the leptonic SM channels. We have begun to investigate top decays for background determination and the potential of unstudied tau data channels for use in SUSY searches. Here we present a first look at our findings. (orig.)