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

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。随着大型强子对撞机（LHC）开始对撞束操作，粒子物理学正站在一个新发现时代的门槛上。凭借在实验室环境中创造的最高能量碰撞，CMS合作（全球约1600名物理学家）将研究我们这个时代一些最基本的问题，例如质量的起源，超对称的可能存在，以及额外空间维度的假设存在。该奖项允许九所大学(芝加哥大学、哥伦比亚大学、弗雷斯诺加州州立大学（牵头机构）、汉普顿大学、纽约大学、北伊利诺伊大学、密歇根州立大学、石溪大学、和华盛顿大学)开发和建造美国ATLAS物理分析仪器（APAI），该仪器被设想为一个分布式计算设施，由利用开放科学网格基础设施的基于大学的专用分析计算机共享阵列组成。APAI将为大学教师、博士后研究人员、研究生和本科生提供一个独特的机会，让他们参与到实验粒子物理学中，并利用ATLAS实验的数据做出变革性的发现。该奖项为联盟机构提供了提高其声誉和在国际层面上竞争的手段。在大型强子对撞机进行的前沿研究有可能重新激发本科生对科学的兴趣。APAI提供了一个独特的工具，将本科生的教育机会与今天正在进行的一些最令人兴奋和最引人注目的科学研究结合起来。该联盟的一些成员有服务于代表性不足的群体的传统，如非洲裔美国人、西班牙裔美国人和“第一代”大学生，因此人们期望这项研究的引人注目的性质将使他们能够吸引这些代表性不足的学生。此外，APAI代表了一种查看和使用分布式集群的转换方式，可以显著改善大型协作处理物理分析的方式。

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.