World’s Biggest Computing Grid Launched

The world’s largest computing grid is ready to tackle mankind’s biggest data challenge from the earth’s most powerful accelerator. Today, three weeks after the first particle beams were injected into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid combines the power of more than 140 computer centers from 33 countries to analyze and manage more than 15 million gigabytes of LHC data every year.

The United States is a vital partner in the development and operation of the WLCG. Fifteen universities and three U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories from 11 states contribute their power to the project.

“The U.S. has been an essential partner in the development of the vast distributed computing system that will allow 7,000 scientists around the world to analyze LHC data, complementing its crucial contributions to the construction of the LHC,” says Glen Crawford of the High Energy Physics program in DOE’s Office of Science. DOE and the National Science Foundation support contributions to the LHC and to the computing and networking infrastructures that are an integral part of the project.

U.S. contributions to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid are coordinated through the Open Science Grid, a national computing infrastructure for science. The Open Science Grid not only contributes computing power for LHC data needs, but also for projects in many other scientific fields including biology, nanotechnology, medicine and climate science.

“Particle physics projects such as the LHC have been a driving force for the development of worldwide computing grids,” says Ed Seidel, director of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure. “The benefits from these grids are now being reaped in areas as diverse as mathematical modeling and drug discovery.”

“Open Science Grid members have put an incredible amount of time and effort in developing a nationwide computing system that is already at work supporting America’s 1,200 LHC physicists and their colleagues from other sciences,” says Open Science Grid Executive Director Ruth Pordes from DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Dedicated optical fiber networks distribute LHC data from CERN in Geneva, Switzerland to eleven major “Tier-1” computer centers in Europe, North America and Asia, including those at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. From these, data is dispatched to more than 140 “Tier-2” centers around the world, including twelve in the United States.

“Our ability to manage data at this scale is the product of several years of intense testing,” says Ian Bird, leader of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid project. “Today’s result demonstrates the excellent and successful collaboration we have enjoyed with countries all over the world. Without these international partnerships, such an achievement would be impossible.”

“When the LHC starts running at full speed, it will produce enough data to fill about six CDs per second,” says Michael Ernst, director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Tier-1 Computing Center. “As the first point of contact for LHC data in the United States, the computing centers at Brookhaven and Fermilab are responsible for storing and distributing a great amount of this data for use by scientists around the country. We’ve spent years ramping up to this point, and now, we’re excited to help uncover some of the numerous secrets nature is still hiding from us.”

Physicists in the U.S. and around the world will sift through the LHC data torrent in search of tiny signals that will lead to discoveries about the nature of the physical universe. Through their distributed computing infrastructures, these physicists also help other scientific researchers increase their use of computing and storage for broader discovery.

“Grid computing allows university research groups at home and abroad to fully participate in the LHC project while fostering positive collaboration across different scientific departments on many campuses,” says Ken Bloom from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, manager for seven Tier-2 sites in the United States.

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Last Large Piece of ATLAS Scientific Detector Lowered Underground

Researchers in the U.S. ATLAS collaboration have joined colleagues around the world to celebrate a pivotal landmark in the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the lowering of the final piece of the ATLAS particle detector into the underground collision hall at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Experiments conducted at this revolutionary LHC facility, poised to become the world's most powerful particle accelerator, may help scientists unravel some of the deepest mysteries in particle physics. The U.S. branch of the collaboration (U.S. ATLAS), based out of the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, built and delivered several key elements of the ATLAS detector.

"We're proud of the teams involved in this international scientific endeavor - one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in the physical sciences," says Dennis Kovar, acting associate director for High Energy Physics in DOE's Office of Science. "This technical landmark brings us a huge step closer to unveiling a new level of understanding of our universe."

Of the almost 2,100 participants in the ATLAS collaboration, about 420 are U.S. physicists, engineers, and graduate students. Hailing from 38 universities and four national laboratories, these U.S. collaborators are supported by DOE and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The last piece of ATLAS lowered into the ATLAS experimental cavern is one of two elements known as the small wheels. The two ATLAS small wheels, though little in comparison to the rest of the ATLAS detector, are each about 30 feet in diameter and weigh 100 tons. The wheels are covered with sensitive detectors that will be used to identify and measure the momentum of subatomic particles called muons that are created in collisions at the LHC. The entire detector system has an area equal to three football fields, consisting of 100 million independent
electronic channels. As charged particles pass through a magnetic field created by superconducting magnets, this detector has the ability to accurately track them to the precision of the width of a human hair.

"This is a remarkable milestone in the complicated construction of the ATLAS detector," say Joseph Dehmer, director of the Physics Division at the NSF. "The LHC is one of the most exciting physics experiments for this decade and beyond. We are impressed by the hundreds of U.S. university and national laboratory scientists who are working hard to make this extraordinary project a reality. We look forward to the groundbreaking results that are now just around the corner."

Involving the work of 450 physicists from 48 institutions around the world, lowering this last small wheel marks the end of a decade of planning and construction of the muon spectrometer system.

"For me personally, this is the culmination of many years of work designing, planning, and installing the mechanical structure," says Vincent Hedberg, who led the development of the small wheel support system. "For ATLAS as a whole, the last large detector is finally in place."

Brookhaven National Laboratory led the development of the 32 muon detectors in the inner ring of the wheels, working with Stony Brook University, the University of Arizona, and the University of California, Irvine. In addition, numerous U.S. universities built the 64 precision muon chambers on the small wheels; these include: the University of Michigan, University of Washington, Seattle, and the Boston Muon Consortium, which involves Boston University,
Brandeis University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tufts University.

"These fragile detectors comprise the largest measuring device ever constructed
for high-energy physics," said George Mikenberg, ATLAS muon project leader.

Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to take a big leap in their exploration of the universe. The ATLAS detector may help its scientists unravel some of the deepest mysteries in particle physics such as the origin of mass or the identification of dark matter. The ATLAS collaboration will now focus on commissioning the detector in preparation for the start-up of the LHC this
summer.

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