Study of the Higgs Boson Discovery Potential in the Process $pp \to Hqq, H \to \tau^{+}\tau^{-}$ with the ATLAS Detector

The decay of Higgs bosons produced in vector-boson fusion into tau-lepton pairs is one of the most promising Standard Model Higgs discovery channels in the mass range of 100-140 GeV. Simulations of the signal and background processes in the ATLAS detector have been used to evaluate its sensitivity for this Higgs boson decay. For the first time multivariate methods, in particular an artificial neural network, have been employed for the separation of signal and background events. The expected signal significance has been evaluated including systematic uncertainties.