STAR NEWSLETTER NUMBER 54

1. From the Deputy Spokesman:

Reported by Tim Hallman

In general, STAR continues to make good progress.

Since the last newsletter, there was a meeting of the STAR Council at BNL on March 10th. The focus of the meeting was a discussion of the need for additional STAR Manpower, and some aspects of the STAR Publication Policies. As a result of this meaning some refinement of the understanding of the STAR publication policies has taken place through discussions with the Council. John Harris has e-mailed summary notes from the meeting to the Council members, as a starting point for developing changes to be incorporated into the STAR publication policies and the bylaws, if necessary, to take care of the issues that were discussed and agreed upon. John intends to ask three Council members to be on a committee to develop changes to the publication policies based upon the summary of this meeting.

These policies will apply to all STAR Collaborators who write (or collaborate in writing) papers, or who give talks. Since hopefully that applies to everyone in STAR, I encourage you to ask your institutional representative for a copy of the summary notes from the March 10th meeting, so that you can be well informed about the changes that are being discussed and provide input that you may feel is important.

A second very important event which took place was a meeting on March 18th between representatives of RHIC, the RHIC Computing Facility, and the four RHIC experiments to define the scope of the first Mock Data Challenge (MDC-1). The first Mock Data Challenge will begin on July 27th, and will extend for six weeks until September 4, 1998. Following is a brief summary of the conclusions from this meeting:

The following 3 primary goals were established for MDC-1:

1. Demonstrate the ability to simultaneously record data from more than one experiment in the robotic storage system at 10% of nominal capacity.

2. Demonstrate the ability to simultaneously reconstruct the data of more than one experiment with efficient use of resources.

3. Measure the relative effectiveness of multi-query optimized data mining to single query data mining using a) Grand Challenge software for STAR and PHENIX, and b) non-Grand Challenge software for PHOBOS and BRAHMS.

From the members of the STAR Software team that I have discussed this with, most are pleased that the outcome of this meeting provided a set of realistic goals for the first Mock Data Challenge which will afford clear measures of the degree to which MDC-1 is successful.

Finally, I would like to note for the Collaboration that there will be a meeting of the Physics Working Groups at BNL on April 30-May 1. For details of the meeting, please contact Tom LeCompte or John Harris.

Excerpted from the STAR Monthly Report for February 1998.

The TPC clean tent erection was completed in February and good progress was made in installing gas lines.

The platform flooring problems have been solved and installation should be complete in March. This is timely as the electronics racks should arrive at BNL in late March. The cable tray has been installed under the DAQ room computer floor, and the TPC gas piping and cable tray on the Magnet face should go up in time for the low-voltage, power and signal cable laying. This is scheduled to begin in early May.

TPC Summary and Highlights

Magnet Summary and Highlights

Electronics Summary and Highlights

Systems Test

Front End Electronics (FEE)

Data Acquisition (DAQ)

Using artificial data, the Event Builder, Token Manager, Trigger-DAQ Interface and Taper were exercised with 10 million events to tape, and an event rate of 1.6 kHz was achieved using a single sector broker with a minimal data contribution.

Trigger

On-line interfaces continue to evolve with many interfaces reaching stability. All control level code has been outlined and many internal interfaces specified for the control system. Goals for the May 15 System Test with DAQ have been set.

Slow Controls

Computing Summary and Highlights

A stable TPC simulation-reconstruction chain was built for SL97b for doing fast or slow simulation and reconstruction as well as for analyzing the cosmic x-ray and laser data from the system tests.

A STAR Note (#325) was written which describes the proposed data structures for the TPC raw data to be used in STAF for on-line and off- line analysis. Extensive discussions within on-line, DAQ and off-line are refining this proposal; a final version should emerge in March.

After collecting comments from the collaboration, the computing requirements estimations for simulations were completed and the final Computing Requirements Task Force Report was submitted to the Spokesman.

Both NERSC and Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) Cray T3Es will be used for simulation production to prepare a Mock Data Challenge data sample. Substantial progress was made on porting CERNLIB and GSTAR to the T3E.

The design of the On-line system has matured significantly following agreements on state model definitions for each of the components of the system. Drafts of the interfaces between On-line and DAQ, and On-line and Trigger have been formulated, including the specification of methods for data exchange and state transitions, error message transmission, and exception handling. Development work with the commercial on-line tools adopted by the group, particularly Orbix, is progressing well. The group completed the design of an Ethernet network for the experimental area.

Joint workshop of Physics working groups. April 30 - May 1, BNL. For further information please contact John Harris, Yale, or Tom LeCompte, ANL.

RHIC Spin Workshop, April 27,28, BNL. For further information either see the WWW site, http://penguin.phy.bnl.gov/www/riken.

STAR collaboration meeting. Scheduled for July 26 - August 1st, 1998, at BNL. For further information please contact John Harris, Yale.

Progress continues out at the STAR site. If you've looked at the contruction picture on the WWW lately you've seen some Unistrut supports blocking the view of the TPC. These supports are part of the support system for the water cooled bus line that carries power to the STAR magnet, which is in the process of being installed. The Digital camera was moved a few feet higher on the wall yesterday, and when the picture on the Web gets updated the view should clear up.

Both of the main magnet transformers arrived on site during March. The installation of the water cooled bus continued through the month and will go on through April. The parts for the electronics racks arrived on site in March and will be assembled and installed in the Rack Room and on the platform in April. The installation of the Hydraulic system and controls continued through March and will finish up in early April. The main hydraulic rams that will be used to move STAR were attached in March. You will be able to see them when the picture on the WWW gets updated. A few of the TPC sectors were removed this past month. One was removed to repair a known HV problem, and the others were removed to allow for access to work inside the TPC. The assembly of the TPC gas system continued through March, and right at the end of the month the Canary system became operational. If you look at the Assembly building (AB) picture on the Web you can see some green structures attached to the face of the magnet. These are the supports for the tray system (power, water, gas, etc.) that will be mounted on the magnet during April. The magnet coil assembly electrical interconnects (all main coils run in series) were completed in March. Finally, the water system in the AB and WAH was successfully pressure tested this past month.

The picture of the AB will change dramatically during April. The hydraulic system will be completed early in April. Both electronics platforms will then be attached to the magnet, and the entire STAR assembly will be rolled into the WAH where it will reside for approximately two months. With the STAR assembly out of the way, the installation of the rails for the Poletip carraiges will be installed into/onto the AB floor, and the assembly of the Poletip carraiges will begin. To remind the reader, these Poletips each weigh about 75 tons and have centers of gravity that are 14 feet above floor level. With the arrival of the main magnet Rectifier, which will arrive during April, the last piece of the magnet power supply system will be on site. The installation of the TPC gas system will continue through April, and some reworking of the Laser raft covers inside the TPC volume will take place.

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

Postdoctoral Position in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions The Nuclear Heavy Ion Group at Carnegie Mellon University has an immediate opening for an experimental postdoctoral researcher. The group is actively involved with the Trigger subsystem for the STAR detector, as well as participating in several STAR physics analysis working groups. We are also collaborators in two current AGS experiments: E895 (using the EOS TPC), which has collected extensive data with Au beams at several energies; and E896 (the "definitive" H0-dibaryon search), which begins major data taking this spring. The successful candidate will be expected to participate in all aspects of the group's research program, with particular emphasis dependent on the candidate's experience and interests. The initial appointment is for one year, with the expectation (assuming mutual agreement) for renewal well into the RHIC/STAR startup time frame. Outstanding computational resources are available at CMU, along with abundant cultural, sports, and outdoor recrea- tional opportunities. The University is located in a pleasant section of Pittsburgh, which is itself situated in the foothills of the Allegheny mountains in southwestern Pennsylvania. It is a major metropolitan area with high-tech industry and convenient airline accessibility, yet retains the spirit and friendliness of a small town.

Candidates are invited to contact Professor Morton Kaplan as soon as possible by e-mail or snail-mail (addresses below). To expedite consideration, please arrange for your CV, statement of research interests, and three letters of recommendation to be sent directly to:

		Postdoctoral Fellow, Visiting

National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC)
High Performance Computing Department
High Energy and Nuclear Physics Computer Support Group
Job NERS/224
$4350-$4750/Mo.

GENERAL POSITION DESCRIPTION: The Postdoctoral Fellow position enables a recent graduate with a Ph.D. or its equivalent to acquire further scientific training and to develop professional maturity for independent research.

GENERAL QUALIFICATIONS: A recent graduate possessing a Ph.D. degree or equivalent with strong emphasis on computing or computational science.

DUTIES: Essential -- As a member of the High Energy and Nuclear Physics Computer Support group (see http://www.nersc.gov/aboutnersc/henp.html), work half-time on computer science projects with researchers from a specific high energy physics experiment (either CDF - see http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/ or D0 - http://d0sgi0.fnal.gov/) and half-time on computer science projects relevant to high energy experimental physics in general. Collaborate with both computer scientists and physicists to design and develop robust, functional software needed by researchers to conduct and analyze physics experiments. Marginal -- Should be able to travel to and present at collaboration meetings and conferences.

QUALIFICATIONS: Essential -- Demonstrated ability to design and implement software deliverables on a time-critical path. Demonstrated expertise in the C and C++ languages in the UNIX environment. Experience writing robust applications used for production by multiple people over an extended time period. A recent graduate possessing a Ph.D. degree or equivalent with strong emphasis on computing or computational science. Excellent written and oral communications skills. Marginal -- Experience with Java, Tcl, Python, FORTRAN and other languages a plus. Experience with object oriented databases desirable. Applicants with a Ph.D. in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, computer science or related field are preferred.

OTHER: Extending a tradition of 65 years of science leadership for America, the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory performs forefront research to address major national and global challenges. The Berkeley Lab has maintained its institutional distinction based upon our close partnership with the University of California, the size and scale of our research programs, and our accomplishments in computational, energy, life, and general sciences. Our location provides a rich environment, with an outstanding scientific and engineering staff and with joint faculty appointments, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows.

POSTING DATE: January 6, 1998.

CLOSING DATE: Open until filled.

For further information please contact:

7. New STAR NOTES since the last Newsletter