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A data thunderstorm is gathering on the horizon
with the next generation of particle physics experiments. The amount
of data is overwhelming. Even though the prime data from the
CERN CMS
detector will be reduced by a factor of more than ten million,
it will still amount to over a Petabyte (1015 bytes, a billion megabytes)
of data per year accumulated for scientific analysis. The task of finding rare events
resulting from the decays of massive new particles in a dominating background is even more
formidable. Particle physicists have been at the vanguard of data-handling
technology, beginning in the 1940's with eye scanning of bubble-chamber
photographs and emulsions, through decades of electronic data acquisition
systems employing real-time pattern recognition, filtering and formatting,
and continuing on to the PetaByte archives generated by modern experiments.
In the future, CMS and other experiments,
like ATLAS,
now being built to run at CERN Large Hadron Collider expect to accumulate
of order of 100 PetaBytes within the next decade.
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The Large Hadron collider will be built astride
the Franco-Swiss border west of Geneva, at the foot
of the Jura mountains, in front of the Alps.
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The scientific goals and discovery potential
of the experiments will only be realized if efficient worldwide
access to the data is made possible. Particle physicists are thus
engaged in large national and international projects that address
this massive data challenge, with special emphasis on distributed
data access. There is an acute awareness that the ability to analyze
data has not kept up with its increased flow. The traditional approach
of extracting data subsets across the Internet, storing them locally,
and processing them with home-brewed tools has reached its limits.
Something drastically different is required. Indeed, without new
modes of data access and of remote collaboration we will not be
able to effectively access the intellectual resources represented
in our distributed collaborations.
For more information also look at the corresponding
High-Energy Particle Physics GriPhyn pages
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A simulated event in the CMS detector, A Higgs
particle decays to two jets and two electrons. The
Higgs mass is assumed to be 800 GeV.
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