P. Buncic

Energy dependence of pion and kaon production in central Pb¿Pb collisions

Measurements of charged pion and kaon production in central Pb+Pb collisions at 40, 80 and 158 AGeV are presented. These are compared with data at lower and higher energies as well as with results from p+p interactions. The mean pion multiplicity per wounded nucleon increases approximately linearly with s_NN^1/4 with a change of slope starting in the region 15-40 AGeV. The change from pion suppression with respect to p+p interactions, as observed at low collision energies, to pion enhancement at high energies occurs at about 40 AGeV. A non-monotonic energy dependence of the ratio of K^+ to pi^+ yields is observed, with a maximum close to 40 AGeV and an indication of a nearly constant value at higher energies.The measured dependences may be related to an increase of the entropy production and a decrease of the strangeness to entropy ratio in central Pb+Pb collisions in the low SPS energy range, which is consistent with the hypothesis that a transient state of deconfined matter is created above these energies. Other interpretations of the data are also discussed.

Evidence for an Exotic S = -2, Q = -2 Baryon Resonance in Proton-Proton Collisions at the CERN SPS

Results of resonance searches in the Xi- pi-, Xi- pi+, antiXi+ pi- and antiXi+ pi+ invariant mass spectra in proton-proton collisions at sqrt{s}=17.2 GeV are presented. Evidence is shown for the existence of a narrow Xi- pi- baryon resonance with mass of 1.862+/-0.002 GeV/c^2 and width below the detector resolution of about 0.018 GeV/c^2. The significance is estimated to be 4.0 sigma. This state is a candidate for the hypothetical exotic Xi_(3/2)^-- baryon with S = -2, I = 3/2 and a quark content of (d s d s ubar). At the same mass a peak is observed in the Xi- pi+ spectrum which is a candidate for the Xi_(3/2)^0 member of this isospin quartet with a quark content of (d s u s dbar). The corresponding antibaryon spectra also show enhancements at the same invariant mass.

Middleware for the Next Generation Grid Infrastructure

The aim of the EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-Science in Europe) project is to create a reliable and dependable European Grid infrastructure for e-Science. The objective of the EGEE Middleware Re-engineering and Integration Research Activity is to provide robust middleware components, deployable on several platforms and operating systems, corresponding to the core Grid services for resource access, data management, information collection, authentication & authorization, resource matchmaking and brokering, and monitoring and accounting. For achieving this objective, we developed an architecture and design of the next generation Grid middleware leveraging experiences and existing components essentially from AliEn, EDG, and VDT. The architecture follows the service breakdown developed by the LCG ARDA group. Our strategy is to do as little original development as possible but rather re-engineer and harden existing Grid services. The evolution of these middleware components towards a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) adopting existing standards (and following emerging ones) as much as possible is another major goal of our activity.

AliEn - ALICE environment on the GRID

AliEn (http://alien.cern.ch) (ALICE Environment) is a Grid framework built on top of the latest Internet standards for information exchange and authentication (SOAP, PKI) and common Open Source components. AliEn provides a virtual file catalogue that allows transparent access to distributed datasets and a number of collaborating Web services which implement the authentication, job execution, file transport, performance monitor and event logging. In the paper we will present the architecture and components of the system.

AliEn: ALICE environment on the GRID

Starting from mid-2008, the ALICE detector at CERN LHC will collect data at a rate of 4PB per year. ALICE will use exclusively distributed Grid resources to store, process and analyse this data. The top-level management of the Grid resources is done through the AliEn (ALICE Environment) system, which is in continuous development since year 2000. AliEn presents several original solutions, which have shown their viability in a number of large exercises of increasing complexity called Data Challenges. This paper describes the AliEn architecture: Job Management, Data Management and UI. The current status of AliEn will be illustrated, as well as the performance of the system during the data challenges. The paper also describes the future AliEn development roadmap.

Distributing LHC application software and conditions databases using the CernVM file system

The CernVM File System (CernVM-FS) is a read-only file system designed to deliver high energy physics (HEP) experiment analysis software onto virtual machines and Grid worker nodes in a fast, scalable, and reliable way. CernVM-FS decouples the underlying operating system from the experiment denned software stack. Files and file metadata are aggressively cached and downloaded on demand. By designing the file system specifically to the use case of HEP software repositories and experiment conditions data, several typically hard problems for (distributed) file systems can be solved in an elegant way. For the distribution of files, we use a standard HTTP transport, which allows exploitation of a variety of web caches, including commercial content delivery networks. We ensure data authenticity and integrity over possibly untrusted caches and connections while keeping all distributed data cacheable. On the small scale, we developed an experimental extension that allows multiple CernVM-FS instances in a computing cluster to discover each other and to share their file caches.

CernVM – a virtual software appliance for LHC applications

CernVM is a Virtual Software Appliance capable of running physics applications from the LHC experiments at CERN. It aims to provide a complete and portable environment for developing and running LHC data analysis on any end-user computer (laptop, desktop) as well as on the Grid, independently of Operating System platforms (Linux, Windows, MacOS). The experiment application software and its specific dependencies are built independently from CernVM and delivered to the appliance just in time by means of a CernVM File System (CVMFS) specifically designed for efficient software distribution. The procedures for building, installing and validating software releases remains under the control and responsibility of each user community. We provide a mechanism to publish pre-built and configured experiment software releases to a central distribution point from where it finds its way to the running CernVM instances via the hierarchy of proxy servers or content delivery networks. In this paper, we present current state of CernVM project and compare performance of CVMFS to performance of traditional network file system like AFS and discuss possible scenarios that could further improve its performance and scalability.

Ξ− and Ξ+ production in central Pb+Pb collisions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon

Results of the production of Xi and Xi-bar hyperons in central Pb+Pb interactions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon are presented. This analysis utilises a global reconstruction procedure, which allows a measurement of 4pi integrated yields to be made for the first time. Inverse slope paramters, which are determined from an exponential fit to the transverse mass spectra, are shown. Central rapidity densities are found to be 1.49 +- 0.08 and 0.33 +- 0.04 per event per unit of rapidity for Xi and Xi-bar respectively. Yields integrated to full phase space are 4.12 +- 0.02 and 0.77 +- 0.04 for Xi and Xi-bar. The ratio of Xi-bar/Xi at mid-rapidity is 0.22 +- 0.03.

Lambda and lambda production in central Pb-Pb collisions at 40, 80, and 158A GeV.

Production of Lambda and Antilambda hyperons was measured in central Pb-Pb collisions at 40, 80, and 158A GeV beam energy on a fixed target. Transverse mass spectra and rapidity distributions are given for all three energies. The Lambda/pi ratio at midrapidity and in full phase space shows a pronounced maximum between the highest BNL Alternating Gradient Synchrotron and 40A GeV CERN Super Proton Synchrotron energies, whereas the Lambda/pi ratio exhibits a monotonic increase.

Transverse momentum fluctuations in nuclear collisions at 158A GeV

Results are presented on event-by-event fluctuations in transverse momentum of charged particles, produced at forward rapidities in p+p, C+C, Si+Si and Pb+Pb collisions at 158 AGeV. Three different characteristics are discussed: the average transverse momentum of the event, the Phi_pT fluctuation measure and two-particle transverse momentum correlations. In the kinematic region explored, the dynamical fluctuations are found to be small. However, a significant system size dependence of Phi_pT is observed, with the largest value measured in peripheral Pb+Pb interactions. The data are compared with predictions of several models.