High Energy Physics Projects

CACR and High Energy Physics at Caltech enjoy a close synergy. The computing and networking needs of the next generation of particle physics experiments pose interesting challenges and require leading edge and innovative solutions. CACR and HEP are collaborating closely in several large projects that have been funded to address these computing challenges.

The CACR/HEP team is also continuing a long term theme of exploitation and adaptation of Database technology for distributed scientific data storage and analysis. A particular emphasis is on the use of Web Services that offer distributed thin-client access to compute resources via Grid based authentication and de facto protocol mediated data transfer. These studies fall under the umbrella of “Grid Enabled Analysis” which is now a very active research area in the physics community, and which has been and will continue to be pioneered at Caltech.

Another critical and important research area is the development of ultra-scale TCP-based wide area networks, a topic being jointly tackled by CACR, HEP and the FAST team in Caltech’s CS department.

• PPDG /SciDAC Particle Physics Data Grid. Funded by DOE in 1999. New funding in 2004-6. Deployment of Grid computing in existing HEP experiments. Mainly physicists. http://www.ppdg.net
• GriPhyN/iVDGL Grid Physics Network, international Virtual Data Grid Laboratory. Funded by NSF in 1999. Grid Middleware (VDT, “Virtual Data”), Tier2 deployment and Grid Operations. HENP, Astronomy, Gravity Wave physics. http://www.griphyn.org
• Open Science Grid Caltech/FNAL/Brookhaven .Combine computing resources at several DOE labs and at dozens of universities to effectively become a single national computing infrastructure for science, the Open Science Grid. http://www.opensciencegrid.org/
• The FAST Project Multi-GBPS TCP: Data Intensive Networks for Science and Engineering http://netlab.caltech.edu/FAST/
• CHEPREO Extending Grids to South America FIU, Caltech CMS, Brazil http://www.chepreo.org/
• CAIGEE/GAE Developing a Grid Analysis Environment for CERN’s CMS experiment at the LHC. Funded by NSF http://pcbunn.cacr.caltech.edu/GAE/CAIGEE/ http://ultralight.caltech.edu/gaeweb/
• UltraLight Next Generation Integrated Grid and Hybrid Optical Network System for Data Intensive Research http://ultralight.caltech.edu
• DISUN Data Intensive Science University Network Aggregation of LHC/CMS Tier2 resources for Particle Physics Analysis in the USA (Just funded: no URL yet)