DZero analyzes efficiency
DZero collaborators enjoy a break between sessions during last week's collaboration meeting.
Each summer, hundreds of members of the DZero collaboration gather together to discuss the detector's progress and future plans. This year, the gathering had a special focus: optimizing DZero. It focused on getting more information out of the data than out of the detector.
With the Tevatron poised to run through 2011, Fermilab's two detectors, CDF and DZero, would extend their data collection runs. To do that, the collaboration would need to collect data more efficiently for a longer period of time. Doing that is no simple task.
"We're looking to improve the collaboration from the point at which data is collected all the way through to the final result. We want to find the best way to take data, analyze it and do physics with it," said Marjorie Corcoran, DZero collaboration meeting program committee chair and Rice University physics professor.
The meeting's 35 hours of parallel talks and 12 hours of plenary sessions included speakers from practically every collaborating group. "When we set out to create the agenda, we wanted to make sure there were many opportunities for participants to interact and share ideas," Corcoran said.
On Thursday, collaborators began to analyze the meeting in a summary session and discuss ways to improve meetings for the coming years. Even after the talks ended, people congregated at the tables in the cafeteria to continue to discuss meeting topics.
"This year's summer meeting was a big opportunity for cross fertilization of ideas from different parts of the collaboration," said Darien Wood, DZero co-spokesperson and physics professor from Northeastern University. "And we are enthusiastically looking forward to really taking advantage of the Tevatron's extended run."
-- Tia Jones
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