CSSI: Frameworks: X-Ion Collisions with a Statistically and Computationally Advanced Program Envelope (X-SCAPE)

世界各地的高能对撞机目前正在研究各种亚原子粒子的产生和相互作用，这些粒子和环境是在质子与质子、原子核甚至两个原子核之间的碰撞中产生的，比如欧洲核研究中心(CERN)的大型强子对撞机(LHC)或布鲁克海文国家实验室(BNL)的相对论重离子对撞机(RHIC)。未来的电子离子对撞机(EIC)计划在BNL建造，它将研究电子与质子和原子核的碰撞。所有这些实验中的相互作用都是由强大的核力主导的，其行为仍然没有被很好地理解。理论和实验之间的直接比较需要复杂的计算机模拟，其中碰撞的每个阶段都是通过既定原理或候选理论的组合来建模的。由多个子模拟组成的完整模拟取决于几个输入参数。这些参数的提取值代表了强相互作用物质的基本性质。在与来自不同实验的大量数据进行广泛比较的情况下，同时确定这些参数需要一个详细的统计和计算框架。X-SCAPE Collaboration是一个由物理学家、计算机科学家和统计学家组成的多学科团队，致力于构建这样一个开源框架。操作、修改和扩展这一框架所需的专业知识通过专门的短期学校(面对面和虚拟)、专题研讨会、网络教程、会议演示和详细出版物的组合传播给实践科学家。X-SCAPE项目通过提供一个通用的、可修改的和模块化的框架来涵盖整个高能核物理事业，该框架结合了这些实验中普遍存在的所有已知的相互作用过程。开发的软件设计成可移植到混合架构上，在混合架构中，GPU加速可以应用于最苛刻的计算任务。X-SCAPE作为一个稳定改进的包，最终每年发布，它包括i)允许在商用CPU上简化模拟的基线工具的默认分发，ii)用于具有GPU的分布式体系结构的重构产品，和iii)贝叶斯统计例程，以模拟和系统地探索各种实验数据的参数模型空间。这个奖项由高级网络基础设施办公室颁发，由物理部内的信息前沿物理学(PIF)计划和数学和物理科学局内的多学科活动办公室联合支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

High-energy colliders around the world currently study the production of, and interaction between, a variety of subatomic particles and environments produced in the collision of protons with protons, with nuclei, or even between two nuclei, as at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), or at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The future Electron Ion Collider (EIC), slated for construction at BNL, will study collisions of electrons with protons and nuclei. Interactions at all these experiments are dominated by the strong nuclear force, whose behavior is still not well understood. Direct comparison between theory and experiment requires sophisticated computer simulations, where each stage of a collision is modeled via a combination of established principles or candidate theories. A complete simulation, consisting of a number of sub-simulations, depends on several input parameters. The extracted values for these parameters represent fundamental properties of strongly interacting matter. A simultaneous determination of these parameters, in extensive comparisons with volumes of data from diverse experiments, requires an elaborate statistical and computational framework. The X-SCAPE collaboration, a multi-disciplinary team of physicists, computer scientists and statisticians, is engaged in the construction of such an open-source framework. The expertise required to operate, modify and extend this framework is disseminated to practicing scientists via a combination of dedicated short-term schools (in-person and virtual), topical workshops, web tutorials, conference presentations and detailed publications.The X-SCAPE project encompasses the entire high-energy nuclear physics enterprise by providing a general purpose, modifiable, and modular framework, that incorporates all known interaction processes prevalent at these experiments. The developed software is designed to be portable onto hybrid architectures, where GPU acceleration can be applied to the most demanding computational tasks. Provided as a steadily improving package culminating in annual releases, X-SCAPE includes of i) the default distribution of baseline tools allowing for simplified simulations on commodity CPUs, ii) a refactored product for distributed architectures with GPUs, and iii) Bayesian statistical routines to both emulate and systematically explore the model space of parameters against diverse experimental data.This award by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Physics at the Information Frontier (PIF) Program within the Division of Physics and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities within the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.