Collaborative Research: S2I2: Cncp: Conceptualization of an S2I2 Institute for High Energy Physics

University Of Cincinnati Main Campus, Cincinnati OH

Investigators

Abstract

Facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN represent a huge step forward in the quest to understand the fundamental building blocks of nature, and their interactions. The discovery of the Higgs boson and the observation of very rare B meson decays, as predicted by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, demonstrate the strong scientific reach of LHC experiments. Despite these achievements, fundamental questions remain, including: Why does nature express the symmetries embodied in the SM, and not other symmetries? Why are there exactly three generations of basic building blocks (quarks and leptons)? Why are the masses of these building blocks so different from each other, both within a generation and between generations? What is the dark matter which pervades the universe? Does space-time have additional symmetries or extend beyond the three spatial dimensions we know? Planning for upgrades for a High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) in the 2020s is well underway. These upgrades will lead to a 100-fold increase in data volume. Exploiting the increased data volume and the large investments in upgraded detectors requires a commensurate investment in software to assure that the scientific goals are achieved. The HL-LHC is expected to take data starting 10 years from now, and continue for many years. This conceptualization project will develop a Strategic Plan for an eventual S2I2 Institute which can address the software development and sustainability challenges of software for the HL-LHC era. This conceptualization project will support a series of workshops to prepare both the S2I2 Strategic Plan and, together with the international community, a Community White Paper providing an overall roadmap for both U.S. and international software efforts to realize the full science potential of the HL-LHC. This project advances the objectives of the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI), an effort aimed at sustaining and enhancing the U.S. scientific, technological, and economic leadership position in High-Performance Computing (HPC) research, development, and deployment. This project is supported by the Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure in the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering and the Physics Division in the Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.