CERN continuously collects and stores vast amounts (hundreds of petabytes) of data. However, over time and with changing technologies, it is not the data itself that becomes outdated. Problems arise due to aging software and environments, making it challenging to adapt them to new systems and modern equipment. Dr. M. Šarpis will be responsible for preserving the methodologies for analyzing experimental particle physics data collected by LHCb.
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“Not only the data itself is important, but also the computing environment in which it is analyzed. We aim to provide future scientists and students the ability to reproduce the sequence of analysis steps if needed. The computing environment consists not only of aging files or different programming languages but also software, operating systems, and other important technological solutions,” emphasizes Dr. M. Šarpis.
According to him, automated processes and a special environment will be preserved, which will simulate a computer system so that programs and sequences of software steps designed for another platform can be run within it.
“We will preserve automated recipes on what to do with the data collected in the LHCb experiment. This will allow convenient continuation or expansion of analyses, reproducing previously obtained results, methods, or models if necessary. And by expanding analyses, for example, with new machine learning methods, it will be possible to look at certain data in a new way, reinterpret the data,” he says, adding that this is important so that thousands of analyses not only do not become outdated but also become newly relevant.
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According to the VU physicist, the automated program will allow, for example, students to recreate on their computers the same working environment that was used on a supercomputer more than 10 years ago. This is important not only for scientific development and progress but also in the context of open data, using example analyses.
Dr. M. Šarpis explains that although a major upgrade is planned for the LHCb experiment, it will be stopped around 2042, preparing for new future experiments at the 92-kilometer-long Future Circular Collider (FCC). “By then, we will have collected the most important data, achieved results, and utilized today’s technological capabilities. Although the LHCb experiment itself will no longer collect data, we and future scientists will be able to analyze it for several more decades. This will be important even when new CERN experiments begin and new data continue to be collected,” he says.
In the fall of 2024, by decision of the LHCb collaboration board, VU was accepted as a new institute of this prestigious experiment. The CERN LHCb experiment involves 120 scientific institutions worldwide, with nearly 2000 scientists working.
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