CERN Roberta Faggian Marque CERN What is CERN

CERN Roberta Faggian Marque - CERN

What is CERN ? CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world's largest particle physics centre. Founded in 1954, the laboratory was one of Europe's first joint ventures and includes now 20 European Member States, but many non. European countries are also involved in different ways. The Laboratory sits near Geneva on the border between France and Switzerland. CERN employs just under 3000 people, representatives of a wide range of skills - physicists, engineers, technicians, craftsmen, administrators, secretaries, workmen, . . . Some 6500 visiting scientists, half of the world's particle physicists, come to CERN for their research. They represent 500 universities and over 80 nationalities. DILIGENT kick-off meeting, Pisa, September 2004 2

How do physicists study particles? At CERN physicists come to explore what matter is made of and what forces hold it together. Particles are extremely tiny, and to be able to see and study them, scientists need very special tools. They need accelerators, huge machines able to speed up particles to very high energies before smashing them into other particles. Around the points where the "smashing" occurs, scientists build experiments which allow them to observe and study the collisions. These are instruments, sometimes huge, made of several kinds of particle detectors. DILIGENT kick-off meeting, Pisa, September 2004 3

What’s next at CERN ? The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be the most powerful instrument ever built to investigate on particles proprieties. LHC and its detectors are built inside caverns between 50 and 150 meters underground 27 km circumference Four experiments: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb DILIGENT kick-off meeting, Pisa, September 2004 4

LHC detectors By accelerating and smashing particles, physicists can identify their components or create new particles, revealing the nature of the interactions between them. DILIGENT kick-off meeting, Pisa, September 2004 5

LCG The computational requirements of the experiments that will use the LHC are enormous: 12 -14 Peta. Bytes of data will be generated each year, the equivalent of a stack of CDs 20 Km high. Analysing this will require the equivalent of 70, 000 of today's fastest PC processors. The goal of the LCG project is to meet these unprecedented computing needs by deploying a worldwide computational grid service, integrating the capacity of scientific computing centres spread across Europe, America and Asia into a virtual computing organisation. DILIGENT kick-off meeting, Pisa, September 2004 6

CERN and the Grid The Laboratory also plays an important role in developing the technologies of tomorrow, particle physic demands ultimate in performance, making CERN an important testbed for industry. CERN was leading the European Data. Grid project and is now coordinating the EGEE project, it is also taking part in several EUfunded projects: Grid. Start, GRACE, SEE-GRID, DILIGENT, … CERN Members: Roberta Faggian Marque: EGEE RP (related projects) section leader Fabrizio Gagliardi: EGEE project leader Frederic Hemmer: EGEE middleware activity leader DILIGENT kick-off meeting, Pisa, September 2004 7