34. HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY
The DOE supports the development of computational technologies essential to experiments and particle accelerators used for High Energy Physics (HEP) research. Areas of present interest include scalable clustered computer systems, distributed collaborative infrastructure, distributed data management and analysis frameworks, and distributed software development useful to HEP experiments and particle accelerators. Grant applications must clearly and specifically indicate their relevance to present or future HEP programmatic activities.
Although particle physics computer systems and software development typically occur in large collaborative efforts at national particle accelerator centers, there are efforts where small businesses can make innovative and creative contributions. Applicants are encouraged to collaborate with active high energy elementary particle physicists at universities or national laboratories to establish mutually beneficial goals. On-line directories of appropriate researchers are available by institution at http://www.hep.net/sites/directories.htlml. Grant applications are sought only in the following subtopics.
a. Large Scale Computer Systems—Grant applications are
sought to develop (1) improvements to the wide area network fabric used by the experimental
HEP community; (2) improvements to the reliability of cybersecurity
systems protecting distributed storage and job management systems; and/or (3) improvements
to the reliability and performance of data systems for HEP, which include
permanent and temporary storage approaching exabyte
scale. Proposed efforts must address
identified computing problems related to diverse, large scale computing systems
that support particle physics data processing and analysis.
Questions - contact Donald Petravick (Don.Petravick@science.doe.gov)
b. Computational Methods for Petascale Physics—The international nature of HEP experiments and their large computing resource requirements drive the current HEP paradigm of handling and analyzing experimental data in a highly distributed fashion. By aggregating world-wide computing resources from HEP and other disciplines, initiatives like the Open Science Grid [19] aim to enable a federated computing model for HEP and other participating disciplines. Grant applications are sought to support the design, implementation, and operation of distributed computing systems comprising many distributed Petaflops of CPU power and distributed petabytes of data. Areas of current interest include middleware development for grid-enabled systems, distributed data management and analysis frameworks, distributed system configuration tools, monitoring and accounting tools, and security assurance tools for a distributed environment.
Questions - contact Donald Petravick
(Don.Petravick@science.doe.gov)
c. Software to
Support Collaborations of Dispersed Researchers—Grant applications are
sought to develop advanced software to strengthen the ability of dispersed
particle physics researchers to collaborate and to address problems related to
the acquisition, handling, storage, analysis, and visualization of large
datasets. Areas of interest include (1) software project management tools;
(2) visualization and software environments appropriate for physics analysis; (3)
software to support data systems distributed over a wide area network; (4) software
development tools for the production of computer software to meet identified
problems related to distributed, large-scale software development,
configuration management, and data analysis – approaches of interest include
distributed portable testing and Computer Aided Software Engineering, such as
configuration management tools for a portable, distributed environment; (5) algorithms
and software tools for pattern recognition and optimization of data analysis;
and (6) tools for improvements to the performance, verification, or validation
of large software codes, such as found in the LHC experiments.
Questions - contact Donald Petravick
(Don.Petravick@science.doe.gov)
d. Web Tools and Associated Infrastructure to Support Collaborations—Grant applications are sought to develop advanced advanced web tools and associated infrastructure technologies to strengthen the ability of dispersed particle physics researchers to collaborate. Areas of interest include (1) client-server frameworks and Web tools for creating collaborative environments, facilitating remote participation of detector experts at the data collection stage, and/or allowing collaborators real-time two-way participation in remote meetings; (2) computer system components and supporting software incorporating the use of Quality of Service features generally available in wide area networks; (3) portable systems to hold very large collections of data of the type created in connection with the operation of very large detectors, along with data management tools; (4) framework, interconnects, and other peripherals which allow the use and orderly aggregation of commodity computers and computer peripherals at larger than normal scales, or at higher performance levels than usual; (5) web tools for remote data selection ("skimming");
Questions - contact Donald Petravick (Don.Petravick@science.doe.gov)
e. Simulation and
Modeling Techniques and Systems—Grant
applications are sought to develop advanced computing tools and software for
high energy physics simulation and modeling. Topics of interest include
simulation and modeling algorithms for high energy physics processes, particle
detectors, and theoretical calculations. Grant applications also are
sought in areas of simulation support – such as frameworks for the
management, configuration, custody, and dissemination of simulation and
modeling data – in order to enable sharing by multiple experiments and theory
research groups.
Questions - contact Donald Petravick (Don.Petravick@science.doe.gov)
References:
1. “ATLAS
Collaboration, ATLAS: Technical Proposal for a General-Purpose pp
Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider,”
2. “ATLAS
3. Bromley, D. A., “Evolution and Use of Nuclear Detectors and Systems,” Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 162(1-3, pt. I): 1-8, 1979. (ISSN: 0168-9002)
4. “Documents
Relating to
5. Duggan,
J. L. and Morgan, I. L., eds., Application of Accelerators in Research and
Industry: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference,
6. “Computer Applications in Nuclear and Plasma Science,” Conferences on Real-Time Computer Applications in Nuclear, Particle, and Plasma Physics, IEEE-sponsored Website. (URL: http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/nps/CANPS.htm)
7. Kleinknecht, K., Detectors for Particle Radiation,
8. Perkins,
D. H., An Introduction to High Energy Physics,
9. “PCI Express: Performance Scalability for the Next Decade,” PCI-SIG Website. (URL: http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/pciexpress)
10. Regler, M., et al., “Data Analysis Techniques in High
Energy Physics Experiments,”
11. “SciDAC:HENP” (Scientific Discovery
Through Advanced Computing Programs in High Energy and Nuclear Physics),
12. “DOE UltraScience
Net: Experimental Ultra-Scale Network Research Testbed
[Ultranet] for Large-Scale Science,”
13. Circuit oriented high performance networking (http:www.perfsonar.net/)
14. Lattice QCD
Executive Committee, “Computational Infrastructure for Lattice Gauge
Theory: a Strategic Plan,”
15. International Linear Collider Communication Website, International Linear Collider Communication Group. (URL: http://www.interactions.org/linearcollider/)
16. “GGF Document Series,” Global Grid Forum published documents. (URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ggf )
17. “Statistical Problems in Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Workshop Series” (See ’08 Workshop Recommended Reading list: http://phystat-lhc.web.cern.ch/phystat-lhc/2008-001.pdf )
18. “CHEP’07 [Computing in
High Energy Physics Conference],”
19. Open Science Grid Website. (URL: http://opensciencegrid.org)