MRI-R2 Consortium: Development of the U.S. ATLAS Physics Analysis Instrument (APAI) for the Analysis of Data from the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Particle physics stands at the threshold of a new era of discovery as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) begins colliding-beam operations. With the highest-energy collisions ever created in a laboratory environment, the CMS collaboration (about 1600 physicists world-wide) will study some of the most fundamental questions of our time, such as the origin of mass, the possible existence of supersymmetry, and the hypothetical existence of extra spatial dimensions. This award allows nine universities (University of Chicago, Columbia University, California State University at Fresno(lead institute), Hampton University, New York University, Northern Illinois University, Michigan State University, Stony Brook University, and the University of Washington) to develop and build the U.S. ATLAS Physics Analysis Instrument (APAI) which is envisioned as a distributed computing facility comprised of a shared array of university-based dedicated analysis computers utilizing the Open Science Grid infrastructure. The APAI will provide a unique opportunity for university faculty, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students to participate and make transformative discoveries in experimental particle physics using data from the ATLAS experiment.This award provides the means for the consortium institutions to enhance their prestige and compete at an international level. The cutting edge research to be performed at the LHC has the potential to re-invigorate the interest of undergraduates in science. The APAI offers a unique tool to integrate educational opportunities for undergraduates with some of the most exciting and compelling scientific research being done today. Some members of this consortium have a tradition of serving underrepresented groups, African Americans, Hispanics, and "first-generation" college students, thus one expects the compelling nature of the research being proposed will allow them to attract these underrepresented students. Furthermore, the APAI represents a transformational way of viewing and using distributed clusters and could lead to significant improvements in the way large collaborations approach physics analyses.