A solid production demonstration of the CMS role in WLCG

The Worldwide Computing Grid allows fast data transfer between CERN and the US CMS Tier 1 computing center, making remote operations possible. CMS employees work in the Remote Operations Center at Fermilab.

Last fall's unplanned shutdown of the Large Hadron Collider was a disappointment for physicists around the world. But for organizers of the computing grid supporting the collider's detectors, it was also an opportunity to keep working hard. For the first two weeks of June, instead of flooding the grid with data from actual particle collisions, experiment collaborators at CERN and remote computing sites in Europe, Asia and North America joined up to test the ability of the collider's Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) to record, transfer and analyze simulated data in a step-by-step "production demonstration."

Scientists conducted a series of challenges, collectively called the Scale Test of the Experimental Program 2009 (STEP09). All four LHC experiments participated in the test. For example, at the CMS experiment (see earlier iSGTW story, CMS readies network links for LHC data) they first tested the archiving of older recorded data from CERN to CMS's seven Tier 1 computing sites. There, scientists checked the Tier 1 central processing power as they shuttled data to Tier 2 sites. Finally, they challenged the full physics analysis capacity of the Tier 2 sites. On 15 June, as the curtains closed on STEP09, Oliver Gutsche, a Fermilab physicist who was one of those participating in the effort for the CMS experiment, declared the overall performance "very good."

While the CMS portion of this grid - like the rest of the WLCG - was ready to take data last September, says Gutsche, the test "gave us an opportunity to test parts that could not be tested on the previous schedule." It also showed how the system will function under simultaneous demands from the LHC's three other detectors.

-- Rachel Carr

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2009 Neutrino Summer School underway at Fermilab

Scott Willenbrock, a University of Illinois physics professor, gives a lecture on the Standard Model to students at the 2009 International Neutrino Summer School at Fermilab on July 6, 2009. Photo credit: Tonisha Taylor.

For the past week, nearly 100 graduate students and postdocs have gathered at Fermilab for the fourth annual Neutrino Summer School. They heard lectures from Fermilab staff and staff from 15 other institutions who covered the full breadth of neutrino physic. Smaller workshops allowed students to concentrate on topics of upcoming interest. Participants also enjoyed tours of Fermilab's neutrino facilities and evening social events. The program concludes Friday, July 17.

Students attending the 2009 International Neutrino Summer School at Fermilab take a coffee break between lectures. Photo credit: Jeremey Johnson.

Wanted: Fermilab ushers
Reward: Free tickets to show

The Fermilab Arts & Lecture Series is looking for a few extra ushers for Saturday evening's concert in Ramsey Auditorium by Ashley Lewis and Ashton Gap, an energetic and riveting bluegrass band. Please e-mail Janet Mackay-Galcraith at mackay@fnal.gov if you want to volunteer.

Ushers will meet 45 minutes before the show and receive two free tickets. You should also contact Mackay-Galbraith if you want to be added to the Usher Corps for future events. Members of the Usher Corps are asked a few days before a show to help on a first-come, first-served basis.

Historic atom smasher reduced to rubble and revelry

From Wired.com, July 8, 2009

BERKELEY, California - What was once the world's biggest atom smasher will soon be nothing more than a collection of old photos and the dust beneath the next big science machine.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Bevatron, built by the Atomic Energy Commission for $9 million in the early '50s, is slowly being demolished in the hills overlooking San Francisco Bay. In a few years, all traces of it will be gone.

The Bevatron was a marvel, that, when compared to the rest of the human world drew ridiculous comparisons. Popular Science called it a "10,000-Ton Cracker for Invisible Nuts" and rapturously listed its dimensions. For boys of all ages, the Bevatron's stats were the 36-24-36 of physics.

The Bevatron occupied 125,000 square feet of land at the center of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It was once the crown jewel of the lab, of the National Lab system and of the particle physics world.

What it would actually do - the physics of the thing - was probably obscure to most readers of Popular Science. The enormous size of this mechanical monument belied the tiny scale on which it really worked.

"It takes this mammoth to smash atoms, which are so small 20,000,000 just span a pinhead," Huff wrote in a photo caption.

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