I cannot agree more with what Chip says. Let's find a way to keep this valuable resource accessible. In fact, the way should be kept open to *add* to it or improve it.

I also suggest that the people who generated the data write a brief ArXiv note on it so that people who use it in their research can cite it. We should cite it in the Snowmass report as well. This is a very important contribution, and should be recognized.

Markus Luty

============================================
Physics Department
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616

Phone: +1 530 554 1280
Skype: markus_luty

On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 10:44 PM, JoAnne L. Hewett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi All,

I think this set of backgrounds is an extremely valuable resoure that our community could greatly use.  Every LHC theory paper would be better off using it.  Surely we can find a good home for it somewhere....

-JoAnne

On Mon, 19 Aug 2013, Raymond Brock wrote:

Hi folks,

Look. These data constitute a unique resource, created at considerable expense and time. There is nothing else like it anywhere: full-statistics in tails for small signal comparison, in a tool that's easy to use and mated to standard matrix element generators, and with pileup conditions that not even the LHC collaborations have simulated in all respects.

It would be a tangible gift provided to the community by their DPF.

Can I promise that it will be used immediately? No. But if the DPF EC can get over what I'm sure are a few loud voices and make the nominal funds available from its embarrassingly large bank roll, it can then advertise to its membership that these tools were built for the community and that they remain available for use.

The theory community has nothing like this and neither, frankly, does the LHC community.

I can't believe that we're actually considering getting rid of it or hiding it.

I've cc'd the EF conveners to this thread (read it all from the bottom!) as apparently I need help or a straightjacket.

best
Chip

On Aug 18, 2013, at 11:47 AM, LATBauerdick <[log in to unmask]<mailto:bau[log in to unmask]>>
wrote:


I?d say, people should make the case if they think this data should be an actively available dataset long-term, that people continue to run on and thus should be available on disk (and there?s much more at Fermilab and Brookhaven).

Otherwise it can be archived and brought back when it is needed.

I heard some people would like to continue in the next weeks to run for some additional studies for the ECFA meeting, which is fine, but also has a finite time scale.

Beyond that, keeping data on disk just in case somebody later might want it is generally not a good way to go. And, yes, USCMS would like to eventually get that space back at Lincoln and at the LPC/Fermilab.

Cheers, LatB

--
LATBauerdick


On Sunday, August 18, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Raymond L Brock wrote:

Hi Steve,

There's more. Here's a reply that I made to the EC after it was turned down after what Jon called "considerable resistance."

The storage I spoke of is for a snowmass product. It's not a lot of money and we have to somehow relieve Ken Bloom of the violation of his MOU that he's done to host the root tuples that are of all of the backgrounds generated within the snowmass detector tool. The madgraph and pythia source still lives at FNAL and I've not heard of any threat to delete that stuff. He's also created an http download ability and I think he'd continue to support that. So it's a one-stop shopping center for backgrounds that include a fancy weighting scheme to populate tails of SM background distributions for rare signal comparisons. It's quick. It's simple and it's got a lot of use to it. For theorists, students, and yes, EF people who venture outside of their collaborations' straightjackets.

I'm shocked that the EC would put up "considerable resistance" to this request. It has utility if we might ever - in the next few years - do any other community-wide simulation jamboree. I think at least some of the good feelings you got from Marcelle and Bjoern reflect that non-tribal benefits of working together. The Italians do something like this between CMS and ATLAS and I'd like to explore that in the US and those background samples are a great way for people to work on simulations for fun (or profit) and not worry about the onerous CMS and ATLAS rules. And as I said, they're available for theorists as well.

Here's the tally: http://snowmass2013.org/tiki-index.php?page=NPBackgroundSamplesTwiki

The context is that the DPF always has way more money in its account than I felt comfortable with as chair. It's _down_ to $100k now.

So if the goal was just to archive the stuff, then sure. Tape would be a portable, permanent way to do that. But I have in mind that people might continue to use it. So the ability to get at the files easily would be a premium, as it has been for snowmass. I then offered to buy back the disks from DPF for our tier 2 if nobody used it for a couple of years.

best
Chip

On Aug 18, 2013, at 2:29 AM, Steven Gottlieb <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]indiana.edu>>

wrote:

Why not write them to tape?  That would be much less expensive.

Steve

On Sun, 2013-08-18 at 01:15 -0500, Jonathan L. Rosner wrote:
See the third thing.  Opinions welcome.  Is this a Snowmass resource
that DPF should pay to preserve?

Regards,
Jon
--      Jonathan L. Rosner
       Enrico Fermi Inst., U. Chicago   Phone: 773-702-7694
       5620 S. Ellis Avenue             Fax:   773-702-8038

       Chicago, IL 60637 USA [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
================================================================

On Aug 14, 2013, at 11:40 AM, Chip Brock <[log in to unmask]<mailto:brock@pa.msu.edu>> wrote:

    hi Chair Line,
Two things have come up which I think I should alert you to.

...

3. I know. I lied. This is a third thing. The snowmass background
samples have been stored at the Nebraska T2. Ken supplied the resources
- disk shelves - out of his T2 resources and he'll need them back. I
think that this stuff should be preserved so people can continue to use
them and so the easiest way to do that would be to buy disks for Ken to
replace his loan. He's thinking about whether he can justify the
support, but I suspect he can. The top end of storage would be about
100TB, so that's a $10k or so expense which I suggest DPF spend.

That is all.
Thanks
Chip

---------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond Brock  *  University Distinguished Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Michigan State University
Biomedical Physical Sciences
567 WIlson Road, Room 3210
East Lansing, MI  48824

sent from: [log in to unmask]<mailto:brock@pa.msu.edu>

cell: (517)927-5447
MSU office: (517)353-1693/884-5579
open fax: (517)355-6661
secure fax: (517)351-0688
Fermilab office: (630)840-2286
CERN Office: 32 2-B03 * 76-71756

Twitter: @chipbrock
Home: http://www.pa.msu.edu/~brock/
ISP220: http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/ISP220/
ISP213H: http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2007spring/ISP213H/
Facebook: http://msu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=2312233










---------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond Brock  *  University Distinguished Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Michigan State University
Biomedical Physical Sciences
567 WIlson Road, Room 3210
East Lansing, MI  48824

sent from: [log in to unmask]<mailto:brock@pa.msu.edu>

cell: (517)927-5447
MSU office: (517)353-1693/884-5579
open fax: (517)355-6661
secure fax: (517)351-0688
Fermilab office: (630)840-2286
CERN Office: 32 2-B03 * 76-71756

Twitter: @chipbrock
Home: http://www.pa.msu.edu/~brock/
ISP220: http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/ISP220/
ISP213H: http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2007spring/ISP213H/
Facebook: http://msu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=2312233

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