US Egypt Cooperative Research: Establishing an Egyptian Grid of Particle Physics and its Applications

Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX

Investigators

Abstract

This US-Egypt collaborative research project will create a network to promote the scientific collaboration and training of young scientists in particle physics in different universities and academic institutions in the USA and Egypt. The collaborators will analyze experimental data from the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in CERN and also perform Monte Carlo simulations that involve other fields, such as medical physics, space science and astrophysics. The US team, lead by Dr. Nural Akchurin at Texas Tech University, plans to collaborate with Dr. Amr Radi at Ain Shams University (AU) and with researchers at Helwan University (HU) and the British University in Egypt (BUE) to establish the first Egyptian Grid network in Particle Physics (EGNPP). Intellectual merit. This cooperative effort between the physicists and computer scientists of the US and Egypt will promote a strong scientific collaboration centered on the CMS experiment at LHC/CERN. With the re-start of the LHC, the team expects to collect excellent data for many years to come. The anticipation of discoveries and challenges posed by detector construction and computing (data analyses) is what brings the team together. The PI considers this project a strong paradigm for disseminating the kind of scientific wealth and opportunity that will build a wider and more diverse scientific community. High energy particle physics has always led the way in large and effective international collaborations, and the PI maintains that the LHC project should be no different. This collaboration will engage US and Egyptian scientists into the data analyses, event generation, and computing structure of the experiment. Broader impacts. Texas Tech University has been a long and active participant in the CMS experiment, and the particle physics group has established a successful grid computing environment on campus. Texas Tech facilities have not only served as models to other scientific disciplines on campus but also provided a stable computer and storage environment to CMS. The team intends to organize seminars and concentrated courses, delivered by senior physicists from the participating institutions. And, the PI plans to hold monthly videoconferences with the computing and analyses CMS groups at CERN, the Egyptians, and the TTU group using the EVO videoconferencing system. This award is being supported by the Office of International Science and Engineering's Africa, Near East, and South Asia Program.