Pierre Auger Computing

Located in western Argentina, the Pierre Auger Observatory is studying extensive cosmic ray air showers over an area of 3,000 square kilometers. These showers are generated by particles with far higher energies than any ground-based accelerator can reach, and they continue to challenge our understanding. The strategy behind the design of the Pierre Auger Observatory is to study showers through detecting not only the particles, with an array of 1600 water Cherenkov detectors, but also the fluorescence light, using four stations, each with six telescopes overlooking the particle detectors.

The Computing Division supports the Pierre Auger experiment in the following areas:

1. Maintenance and support of the augerd1.fnal.gov data server

This server, along with the Fermilab BlueArc disk server, holds a copy of the raw and reconstructed data taken by the experiment, as the North America data mirror. We are currently "rsync"ed to the computing center in Lyon, France. This server also acts as the database server for Offline calibration and monitoring. Database scripts are running daily to update tables from a few expert sites, such as Karlsruhe, Germany, Boston and Colorado.

2. Support desktop system for analysis

The Auger group at Fermilab is actively participating in the study of systematics associated with the determination of the total cross section measurement of proton-nucleus at energies exceeding the LHC energy, by a factor ~300. We are also involved with the study of (putative) anisotropy in Galactic Center and other point like sources.

More Information: Pierre Auger Observatory Home

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Last updated by cdweb on 04/29/2008