PT Journal AU ATLAS Collaboration (Aad, Gea Alvarez Piqueras, D Cabrera Urban, S Castillo Gimenez, V Costa, MJ Fernandez Martinez, P Ferrer, A Fiorini, L Fuster, J Garcia, C Garcia Navarro, JE Gonzalez de la Hoz, S Hernandez Jimenez, Y Higon-Rodriguez, E Irles Quiles, A Jimenez Pena, J Kaci, M King, M Lacasta, C Lacuesta, VR Marti-Garcia, S Mitsou, VA Oliver Garcia, E Pedraza Lopez, S Perez Garcia-Estañ, MT Romero Adam, E Ros, E Salt, J Sanchez Martinez, V Soldevila, U Sanchez, J Torro Pastor, E Valero, A Valladolid Gallego, E Valls Ferrer, JA Vos, M TI Modelling Z -> ττ processes in ATLAS with τ-embedded Z -> μμ data SO Journal of Instrumentation JI J. Instrum. PY 2015 BP P09018 - 41pp VL 10 DI 10.1088/1748-0221/10/09/P09018 LA English DE Performance of High Energy Physics Detectors; Simulation methods and programs; Analysis and statistical methods AB This paper describes the concept, technical realisation and validation of a largely data-driven method to model events with Z -> tau tau decays. In Z -> μμevents selected from proton-proton collision data recorded at root s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2012, the Z decay muons are replaced by tau leptons from simulated Z -> tau tau decays at the level of reconstructed tracks and calorimeter cells. The tau lepton kinematics are derived from the kinematics of the original muons. Thus, only the well-understood decays of the Z boson and tau leptons as well as the detector response to the tau decay products are obtained from simulation. All other aspects of the event, such as the Z boson and jet kinematics as well as effects from multiple interactions, are given by the actual data. This so-called tau-embedding method is particularly relevant for Higgs boson searches and analyses in tau tau final states, where Z -> tau tau decays constitute a large irreducible background that cannot be obtained directly from data control samples. In this paper, the relevant concepts are discussed based on the implementation used in the ATLAS Standard Model H -> tau tau analysis of the full datataset recorded during 2011 and 2012. ER