One software package to fit all

The LArSoft project aims to create new software to analyze detailed data from neutrino interactions, such as this one, a neutral current neutrino interaction in ArgoNeuT producing a neutral pion.

Particle detectors tend to be one-of-a-kind creations, full of complex, customized parts.

So, designing one software package to use with three different experiments – and possibly more – is a rare occupation at a particle physics laboratory.

A growing group of about 15 physicists, graduate students and postdocs at Fermilab and other institutions are working to do just that – design the United States’ first fully automated particle reconstruction and simulation software that will work with any liquid argon time-projection chamber, including ArgoNeuT, MicroBooNE and LBNE.

“I didn’t want to write a software package for ArgoNeuT, then two years later write another for MicroBooNE, then five years later write one for LBNE,” said Brian Rebel, a Wilson fellow at Fermilab and co-coordinator of the project, called LArSoft.

Put simply, the multiple-kiloton liquid argon detector at LBNE should be a larger, more complex version of the multiple ton MicroBooNE detector, which will be a larger, more complex version of 170-liter ArgoNeuT. Many of those working on LArSoft participate in two or all three of the experiments.

Liquid argon TPCs collect an unprecedented amount of detail about neutrino interactions, of which ArgoNeuT has already collected more than 10,000.

“To go through them by hand would be very time consuming,” Rebel said. “To do it by computer is very challenging.”Still, the group feels up to the task.

“The lion’s share of the software implementation has been pioneered by a wonderful army of graduate students who are very innovative,” said Sam Zeller, Fermilab physicist and LArSoft co-coordinator.

The students – who hail from Yale, Michigan State, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia – came into the design process with fresh eyes, Zeller said.

“We all have prebuilt conceptions of what you need to do to reconstruct an event,” she said. “But the students are using some new concepts from industry. They’re certainly adapting some clever tools.”

-- Kathryn Grim

Lab leadership takes center stage

From the Univesity of Chicago,
March 2010

When Mark Peters participates in strategic planning at Argonne National Laboratory, he often draws on an exercise from the Strategic Laboratory Leadership Program (SLLP) he took three years ago. The exercise called on participants to think of leadership as performance art.

"It made you think about how you see yourself-and how others see you-as a leader," says the Deputy for Programs. "Which of your qualities and characteristics should you, as a leader, employ 'center stage' and which are best used 'backstage.' The exercise really clicked for me."

So did the whole program, which Peters credits for helping him progress from mid-level to senior-level manager.

SLLP is a non-degree, executive education program developed by the University of Chicago's Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories, Booth School of Business Executive Education, Argonne and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The program is part of the University's Lab management contracts with the U.S. Department of Energy. Its main objective is to expose scientists and professional staff to best in-practice tools and theories for effective leadership, strategic thinking, change and innovation.

Read more

Service Desk online request system down 6-8 a.m. April 8

The Service Desk's ticket-submission and request system, the Remedy Requester Console, will be inacessible between 6-8 a.m. on Thursday, April 8.

Individuals who log onto the Fermilab network or have Fermilab computers use the online Remedy Requester Console to submit incidents and requests for service. The console will be down to apply operating system and database patches and to complete some network upgrades.

Although the console will be inaccessible, Fermilab employees and users can still make requests for service and incident submissions can still be made during the downtime by contacting the Service Desk at x2345.

Particle physics INSPIREs information retrieval

From CERN Courier, March 31, 2010

Editor's note: Specialists at CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, working in close collaboration with arXiv, the Particle Data Group and publishers within the field of particle physics, have developed INSPIRE, a new service to provide state-of-the-art information management.

Particle physicists thrive on information. They first create information by performing experiments or elaborating theoretical conjectures. Then they convey it to their peers by writing papers that are disseminated in a preprint form long before publication. Keeping track of this information has long been the task of libraries at the larger laboratories, such as at CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, as well as being the focus of indispensable services including arXiv and those of the Particle Data Group.

Read more